SOCCER ANGLES:Portsmouth look like they are paying a heavy price for winning the FA Cup in 2008 as they struggle to balance the books, writes MICHAEL WALKER
WALKING INTO the Portsmouth club shop one sunny Friday morning back in August, two things were immediately striking.
The first was that in the centre of this very blue place the television screen was broadcasting the 2008 FA Cup final won by Portsmouth against Cardiff City.
The clock in the corner of the screen showed it was 38 minutes in and as it was about 9.38 in the morning you assume this game is stuck on first thing every day. It is a constant reminder of Portsmouth’s best afternoon for more than 60 years.
The second thing was that by the shop door there were blue leaflets advertising Portsmouth FC’s financial services.
“Simple, straightforward solutions to your life outside Fratton Park,” was the blurb on the cover. Pensions, stocks and shares, life insurance, they’re all available. Or they were.
Who would buy insurance from Portsmouth today? There they sit, bottom of the Premier League table, six points off the likes of Burnley, they have just been beaten at West Ham and by Arsenal and next Saturday go to in-form Fulham.
This day last year Tony Adams was Portsmouth manager but they have got through Paul Hart since then and now have Avram Grant trying to hold it all together.
Today there is a home tie in the FA Cup against Coventry City. Given their recent relationship with that trophy you might expect the game to be anticipated but instead it feels like a problem that has to be dealt with. (Even when they were holders, Portsmouth’s defence last season ended in the fourth round at home to Swansea).
The FA Cup may still be on in the club shop but Pompey followers are looking at a much bigger picture and it is making them squeamish. There are serious concerns about the viability of the 112-year-old club.
For the third month in the past four, wages have not been paid into the employees’ banks, including player wages.
Yesterday the club issued a statement saying: “Portsmouth Football Club expect to pay their first-team squad’s December salaries on Tuesday, January 5th.” Peter Storrie, the chief executive, must feel as if he has been putting out fires since the day Harry Redknapp walked away but this is now a blaze that threatens old Fratton Park. Who really owns the club? This is the sort of question still being asked. That can never be a good sign.
During the 4-1 home defeat by Arsenal on Wednesday night, fans did not disguise their understandable and mounting frustration and Steve Finnan has now said that the players heard every word and knew the significance. Players often say they didn’t hear a thing but Finnan, who made his Portsmouth debut in October, said: “I certainly heard the chants, and most of the players heard it. They are frustrated like anyone else and you can understand why.
“They have supported the team a long time. It must be really disappointing for them. The players obviously talk about what is going on, about getting paid, but as players we have to get on with our job for the club and hopefully things can resolve themselves. But, I think, no one really seems to know what is going on.”
Finnan’s final sentence should alarm more than just Portsmouth fans, it should be making its way down the corridors of the Premier League and the Football Association.
In fact it should trouble all of us. Here we are at the beginning of the second decade of the new millennium and the world’s richest league has a club in its fold which defaults on essentials such as wages. Who said the people who own and run Portsmouth were fit and proper for that task? And Portsmouth cannot be alone. It is a theme to which we will return and return again. Despite it being stated repeatedly that clubs over-reach in terms of their finances, it seems there is no stopping them. Look at the fallen: Sheffield Wednesday, Leeds United, Charlton Athletic to name three major former Premier League clubs with decimated budgets.
But on it goes. An agent spoken to this week said that often he does not need to negotiate upwards, the clubs are doing it for him.
Presumably Redknapp was an advocate of paying big wages at Fratton Park because he knew that would bring him bigger and better players. Sol Campbell? Cheap? David James, Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch? Redknapp assembled a squad at Portsmouth he would describe as “triffic” and the fans loved him for it because they won the FA Cup.
At Wembley against Cardiff, Pompey fans basked in their achievement. Some may have asked the price of it that day, but not many. Now they know that winning the trophy did not insure them against the future.
Leeds face big reality check
LEEDS UNITED offer Portsmouth the biggest lesson in what can go wrong at a seemingly successful football club.
After a long drop, Leeds would appear to have bottomed out, though that phrase might require reviewing after tomorrow afternoon.
That is when Leeds go back to Old Trafford for the first time in six years. We are always discussing how far Leeds have fallen but for their goalkeeper Casper Ankergren to describe visiting Old Trafford as “a once in a lifetime” event takes some beating.
Then again 2004 is a while ago. It is an amazing statistic and yet it scarcely conveys any of the ongoing anguish felt by Leeds supporters.
There will be around 9,000 of them in Manchester tomorrow, fuelled by old animosity, among other things, that should leave the local constabulary praying for Monday.
But it is a big day for Manchester United too.
Alex Ferguson knows the meaning of the occasion and the last thing he will risk is an FA Cup shock.
Gary Neville is due to return and he will not want to lose to a club he probably holds in about the same esteem as Liverpool.
Having seen Leeds a few times in the flesh this season, they are durable more than gifted – personified by their striker Jermaine Beckford – and it took them two games to get past Kettering in the last round.
But their outstanding quality will be tested tomorrow. If it flags then this could be one long day for Leeds. Another one.
Owner Ken Bates will doubtless point to the €842,000 that should be earned. But there is a possibility that the cheque will come wrapped inside a reality check.
