Pompey’s Freefall to Continue?

Recently rel­e­gated Portsmouth’s trou­bles are not over.  Far from it.  They may have just begun.  As some­one who has fol­lowed the whole sor­did affair since the first signs of trou­ble in the sum­mer of 2008, I can tell you it’s dif­fi­cult to type that sen­tence.  The fire sale that began with Sul­ley Muntari in July of 2008 has not stopped.

The start­ing eleven from the 2009-10 sea­son opener ver­sus Ful­ham con­sisted of the fol­low­ing:  James, Dis­tin, Kaboul, Bel­hadj, Kran­j­car, Mullins, Wil­son, Diop, Mokoena, Utaka, and Piquionne.  Kanu and Nugent came on as subs.  Of those play­ers the fol­low­ing are gone:  James, Dis­tin, Kaboul, Bel­hadj, Kran­j­car, Diop, and Piquionne.  Mullins and Wil­son say they would be happy to stay, but with other clubs rumored to want them, and Pom­pey in need of cash, they prob­a­bly won’t be around much longer.  Mokoena has said he wants out, but is not exactly in high demand.  Utaka could stay, but is expen­sive.  Kanu and Nugent both trav­eled with the club for their North Amer­i­can tour.  Nugent would like to stay, and prob­a­bly will.  Kanu, how­ever, is out of con­tract, is ask­ing for too much money, and the best guess of his age is late 30s.  The start­ing eleven for the FA Cup final was very dif­fer­ent than the start of the sea­son.  The only men to fea­ture in both start­ing line­ups were James, Mokoena, Diop, Piquionne, and Mullins.  Of those five play­ers, only two could pos­si­bly play on August 7th for the open­ing of the Cham­pi­onship sea­son.  It’s pos­si­ble that none of them will play.

Now the depress­ing part:  Her Majesty’s Rev­enue and Cus­toms has appealed the Com­pany Vol­un­tary Agree­ment which keeps Portsmouth FC in admin­is­tra­tion until the hear­ing.  The hear­ing has been expe­dited, but until that hear­ing is resolved, new own­er­ship can­not take charge and do any­thing to strengthen the squad.  While there are rumors of own­er­ship inter­est, Pom­pey sup­port­ers have heard too many rumors over the two years to lis­ten to any of them.  The club has been allowed to sign a few play­ers because every club has to have 20 play­ers under con­tract to start the sea­son.  No one has delu­sions that this club will get off to any­thing resem­bling a good start.  If the hear­ing does not occur before August 7th, and it is not cur­rently sched­uled but they have promised to expe­dite it, then the club will most likely start the sea­son with a points deduc­tion as much as 17 points.

While the team has not embar­rassed them­selves on their North Amer­i­can tour, it is obvi­ous that they will strug­gle.  They lost to Club Amer­ica 2–1 after tak­ing 42 hours to get from Portsmouth to San Diego.  They then beat the Ven­tura County Fusion 2–1 and Edmon­ton FC on penalty kicks to claim a tro­phy.  Both of those clubs would be the equiv­a­lent of Havant & Water­looville, another club they beat 2–1 before leav­ing for San Diego.  They play MLS bot­tom side DC United on Sat­ur­day evening at RFK sta­dium in the nation’s capital.

The club needs some pos­i­tive news.  Bring­ing in a few play­ers will help new man­ager Steve Cot­ter­ill add some fresh blood and con­vince every­one they have a chance of avoid­ing rel­e­ga­tion.  I don’t envy him that task.

Tagged as: administration, HMRC, Pompey, Portsmouth FC, relegation, Steve Cotterill