Author: Guy Thomas

There were six winding up petitions for football clubs in the High Court today. Two of them relate to Portsmouth!

1. Hinckley United Football Club
2. Brighton Football Club
3. Portsmouth City Football Club
4. Portsmouth City Football Club  (again!)
5. Southend United Football Club
6. Cardiff City Football Club

Cardiff & Southend have won a temporary reprise but Portsmouth’s problems have if anything intensified. Click here to view the article that appeared on the BBC website.

I understand that Portsmouth have been asked to provide a ‘statement of affairs’ within the next week. Such a statement is drawn up by a specialist insolvency practitioner and will be very difficult to produce in such a short space of time, if that is the case the club looks set for administration. Given the minimum 9 point penalty that the Premier League may impose, it is highly likely that the club will , in the future, be preparing its finances on the basis it will be in the Championship next season.

The statement of affairs will likely be made on the basis that Portsmouth is shortly going to be a Championship rather than Premier League club. Leeds, of all clubs, is actually a positive example for Portsmouth as they have managed to reduce long term overheads, such as player wages, and operate well as League One rather than Premier League club. Things may get worse before they get better, but the silver lining is that Portsmouth, like Leeds, has a large fan-base which virtually guarantees revenue over the next few years, and should enable them to bounce back. Depending on how things play out in the next couple of weeks in the Courts, next season looks likely to see a resurgent Leeds and a under pressure Portsmouth as competitors in the Championship seeking a return to top flight football.

If HMRC is to maintain its new hard-line approach Portsmouth will not be the last Premiership club visiting the High Court in 2010. For too long, top flight clubs and their owners have been able to palm off their smaller and unsecured creditors but it looks like that is changing. The problem for clubs is that as soon as one creditor starts insolvency proceedings, as HMRC is, all the others, for example other clubs owed transfer fees, will follow suit. Many recent football insolvency (and near misses) in the lower leagues have been prompted by this change in stance by HMRC.