Another deadline...

It is getting very much like 'the boy who cried wolf' now it seems as the deadlines being set to save the club as 'time is running out' keep coming, and the latest (of sorts) has been set...

Obviously there does eventually need to be a deadline but I wonder when this really will be!

Trevor Birch, as he told Radio Solent, says that fans need to 'pledge their support to The PST's bid' by next Friday, 24th August.

Clearly this deadline that he is asking for next week is for pledges to come in and then The PST take stock of what they have: 'I would hope by the end of next week the Trust will say to me we are ready to go.'

I cannot see how this can be done in a week and this is, for me, an unrealistic target, surely?

Even when that hurdle is overcome it is not as 'cut and dried' as that is it!

A new 'player compromise arrangement' has to be agreed with the football creditors, or in other words the former players - they are owed a total in the region of £8m, The PST's offer was a pot of £2m to be shared among these...

He added: 'they will need to go back to the Football League with a business plan that is acceptable.

'The compromise agreements also need to be revisited and we need to look at the Trust plan and see what can now be paid to the Football Creditors.'

Would £2m to be shared among players dating back god only knows how far be enough?

People were 'worried' that the likes of Michael Brown and Richard Hughes were mentioned, I would be more worried that names such as Sol Campbell, Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe may well be among those still owed money by this club and they left years ago!

That is of course forgetting a deal has to be agreed with Balram Chainrai for Fratton Park...

If you have agreed to put in your grand you want to do it, quite clearly some form of prospectus needs to be sent out to those pledging this money as The PST would not, I can categorically say, expect this money to be stumped up until they get through the business plan to us.

Clearly we have enough money for at least a month; otherwise month-long contracts would not be handed out! You would also 'think' we can get through the season or the football league surely would not have allowed us to start it?

'If' (as it has been claimed) we do indeed have £3m, or so, in the clubs bank account then that is a starting point, if not enough to get us through 2012/13 based on parachute payments coming through, 'earmarked' or not.

I honestly do not think that Birch's latest comments and deadline are helpful, that said - and I notice they have re-worded slightly! - perhaps the BBC's portrayal of these comments did not help either...

PLAY UP POMPEY!



Vital Pompey on: Vital Pompey on:

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