I was reading the BBC Sport article about the PST's rival bid for the club http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/18395456 and one thing stuck out to me as I was reading: The club [according to the article] still has a wage bill of £10Million. So how is that supposed to be paid? If you use league gate receipts as income [ok there's other income, but there are also other expenses!]. £10M ÷ 23 games = £434,782.60 per game. If the average ticket price is £25 (that may be a bit high for League One!) it would need an average attendance of 17,391 to pay the wages. Given a more likely average of around 11,000, it would require a Premier League rate of £39.53 per ticket to raise the money. Some-thing's got to give!
Let us hope then that Tal Ben Haim decides to leave FP soon. That would save almost £2 million at a stroke.
I know it's not how you'd like to start things but it is possible to just terminate contracts. Unlawful but possible! This would simply make the players creditors. Surely it's worth doing to hangers on that will otherwise prevent the club's very existence?
Terminating their contracts out of hand would raise all sorts of legal issues and costs. They've either got to 1) be transferred, or 2) go willingly, giving up a huge amount of money. Since they won't do 2) (and why should they?) transfers are the only choice.
It does seem at the moment that the transfer market is pretty quiet - once it does start moving I'm sure some of our players will get transfers, most of them are pretty good players and they won't be so stupid that they expect a payoff from the club, but there are probably processes they have to go through in regards to getting their dues. To be honest I'm not sure I would say to an employer "oh that's okay, I can see you f*****d up good and proper so I'll just tear up my contract and you won't owe me a penny - you can have all the parachute payments (that were supposed to help a club in relegation from the PL)." Hands up anyone who would do that!
Screw the players like you have everyone else.New players will be queuing up to join you then .......
Do that and the club may not exist when the league with hold the golden share! The only way to not pay them is for the management to start fining the players, like the club captain always has to wear a tie, if not that's a weeks fine and so on. Otherwise it's a waiting game to off load the players before Chainrai buys the club before any new players can arrive. That will probably interfere with preseason training and could lead to a slow start to the campaign.
Do you seriously believe the football league & the footballers union will sit back and see this happen? Me thinks not! Those players would then become football priority creditors with all that implies. Those high earners are clearly not going anywhere voluntarily. And would you if you were contracturally entitled to it. Not their fault that PFC (AGAIN) f::cked up big time. PFC are victims of their own stupidity - but I,m forgetting, it,s not their fault is it
Difference is firstly you wouldn't be paid 36k a week (probably) and secondly and most importantly any company in the 'real' (i.e. non-football) world would either sack you or (my personal preference) cut your salary if they were facing financial difficulities while with football clubs this is impossible. I was talking about myths just earlier today on the Southampton board and another myth that seems to be spouted a lot by some Southampton fans is the belief that we don't accept that PFC (or the board at PFC) is at all at fault for the problems we are facing which is complete BS to be honest.
Just a couple of things saintsalive - the situation we are in at the moment is one that is as of a direct impact of the (several) owners of the club, since 2006. You must have heard about all the protests and marches back in 2009/10, the fans made their concerns very public. 1) Okay no-one could forsee that the Lithuanian government would put out an arrest warrant for the major shareholder but the fans had enough of a bad feeling about CSI and Antonov to point out (by emails) to the FL that there was doubt about his suitability. 2) When CSI took over they did behave quite responsibly but Steve Cotterill went for quality over quantity - quality = higher wages for fewer players. The fans did make their concerns to David Lampitt (by more than emails) and were questioning why we were paying high salaries and why couldn't we go for the kids instead to reduce the wage bill. It depends really who you think PFC is. For me PFC is the "owners/shareholders/board of directors" and that has to be where the buck stops. Each of them is accountable - I, as a fan, have no say or influence in any of the decisions of the board and so the buck doesn't stop with me. So the question is, for you, who is PFC?
I willingly accept the points you have eloquently made. However, there are more than a few pompey supporters (4 are actually good friends of mine) who think PFC are being badly treated by the football league! Most football fans the "fit & proper persons" criteria is seriously flawed, but legally they have to be very careful how they handle this.
Hot Bovril is a Saints fan, for anyone that's interested. Just saying, before any more people jump off the deep end.
Oh yes, I see where you're coming from, and it's the PL as well as the FL who they think share culpability in this sorry, and long-standing mess. There have been so many campaigns and planned campaigns that they've merged into one for me (can't keep up with them). There was huge shock when under Gaydamak pulled his funding and revealed the debts, even though the club was in the PL. If a decent new owner had come along (like St Markus for example) no-one would be having this conversation. But no......... Gaydamak was still around and Al Fahim (the very rich Sheik) came along and was installed as F&PP, but it turned out he had no money, so then Al Faraj stepped in and was declared F&PP even though he is deemed to be a figment of somebody's imagination. Then Chanrai, who was already in dispute with Gaydamak stepped in, putting the club into administration and revealing the extent of the debts, which were staggeringly mind-boggling and can only have come about through asset stripping and probably criminal activity. No criminal investigation has been undertaken and the fans want answers - can you blame us? And this is where the FL is being blamed - everyone accepted Chanrai only wants to recover his loan to Falcondrone (El Mirage's company) - when he sold to CSI we didn't even have to dig deep, a quick google search brought up information about his company and possibly murky past, but the FL deemed him to be a fit owner, although the fans (and I know who many of them are) had written to the FL about their concerns. Five months later Antonov was arrested, and then, although the fans were repeatedly assured that the FL had overseen the accounts on a monthly basis, it appears that the wage structure has not been adhered to - the CVA payments hadn't even begun to be paid, Chanrai reneged on his promise to pay the small creditors, the debts have increased again and then we get docked 10 points by the FL for being naughty. Their response to the complaint that they had been alerted to Antonov was "we think he lied to us" ......... well duh, don't you know that's what crooks do. And this is why your mates think we have been badly treated by the FL. I consider myself to be a fair-minded person who is able to see things in a detached way, and I have to admit that I think the FL shares culpability here and that they themselves, as an organisation, are not fit for purpose.
Thank you for showing such respect to a man we revere. I am no expert on insolvency etc but if I was a Pompey fan I would have put my £1000 up and kept my fingers crossed that the trust would be successful.
Sadly (or not depending on your viewpoint) my prediction of HMRC rejecting a CVA for Rangers has just come true. That was with all players agreeing to a huge pay cut in order for the club to remain afloat until a buyer was found. My early suggestion, whilst a little tongue in cheek becomes a little more relevant. If the choice is pay your players or retain your club, what would you as fans do? Yes there are implications, of course there are, but faced with such a stark choice, as DF said, something's got to give.
Reading that about Rangers doesn't bode well. As a matter of interest [to put it mildly!] does any-one know roughly what percentage the HRMC vote will carry in the Pompey case?
An interesting and intelligent debate underway! - and I fully accept all the points you all have made. One thing is for sure, I certainly blame HMCR for allowing ANY company to run up huge tax bills. They should apply the same rules of engagement to all tax paying(?) companies, football related or not. My son runs a very small business in construction & things are very tough right now as you can all imagine. HMCR start chasing him for paid tax returns after 28days, with all kinds of threats. It seems the more you owe the better treatment you get.
HMRC hold the casting vote on any CVA for PFC... As for HMRC allowing things to get so far out of shape, it is commonplace for them to defer payments on big bills within reason. However, at RFC, the taxable position was simply misrepresented, hence the CVA rejection. This allows for criminal charges to be brought. Read into that what you will for PFC!
