More brinkmanship or fact?

As fans us Pompey ones have been put through it more than most over the years have we not?

You can almost lose track of the amount of times we have been 'told', 'warned' or 'assured' that we only have a matter of months, days or weeks left in existence as Portsmouth Football Club, well the club as we know it anyway!

And that is in the past couple of years alone...

Once more we have been told, this time by an insolvency expert working with The PST's bid, that we have '5-weeks' left before liquidation will have to take place.

A cynic might think that The PST's bid is running out of steam maybe and this has seen the brinkmanship taken on by them this time? I do hope not (the fan owned model running out of steam thoughts is what I mean, brinkmanship by anyone is part of 'the game' it seems!) as a fan owned club is still one that I fully believe, as tough as it would be, offers us the best hope of this club eventually having a sustainable long-term future...

High earners moving on, and ideally some money coming in for them - albeit it 'nominal fees' is something that we know, and have known, for months needs to happen. Without a shadow of a doubt the current wage bill as it stands is not sustainable but then again was The PST bid, at least, not being put forward with this taken into account anyway?

It is still almost nailed on that a number of players, and I think we all know who, will still be here after this 5-week deadline and indeed into next season but I do feel, not that we can expect a 'mass exodus', that a few more players - so long as they drop their wages slightly (but will they?!) - will move on early in July as that is when clubs will start focusing more on who they want to bring in.

Will that be enough?

Now that is the sixty four million dollar question isn't it...

'Brinkmanship' is something that we have come to know inside out with Pompey over these troubling years, so again whilst I stress that the wage bill that we have is unsustainable will it really lead us to liquidation in a little over a month?

I am guessing no but the way this brinkmanship, which these latest thoughts almost certainly are even if there is some truth in them, plays with fans' emotions is awful though!

Liquidation leads to too many 'secured creditors' losing out on money, although they can pick the carcass from the selling off of any assets that they can extremely heavy losses would be felt and you cannot see that these creditors, one man in particular, will allow this to happen. This man, and again you know who, has always maintained liquidation would not happen.

I could be wrong but a rejection of the CVA - as I tend to think will be the case - would not necessarily then mean that was that either, right?

You could argue that the rejection of the CVA proposal, as odd as it might sound, would leave the owner - from a purely non-footballing sense - 'better off' really...

With this in mind, assuming this can happen, I have this strong feeling that the club would then be brought out of administration and taken over without a CVA, with the points penalty handed out as a result taken - where that leaves the manager is another matter! - as it would then be too close to the bone to risk the funds genuinely drying up without an owner in place. Once the funds do dry up completely that is when liquation simple must happen.

You would be foolish to blinker yourself off and say this (liquidation) will categorically not happen, as of course it could (the argument as to this being 'the better option' anyway will also rumble on), but too many signs - high and unrealistically unsustainable wage bill or not - tend to point to liquidation being avoided even if some of the thoughts shared are indeed fact and not all entirely brinkmanship...

PLAY UP POMPEY!



Vital Pompey on: Vital Pompey on:

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.