The Price Is Wrong

Slipperduke · Feb 21, 2010

I think it’s time to have a look at that Fit and Proper Persons test. The existing document focuses heavily on issues of past fraudulent behaviour, but that’s not good enough. Given everything that has happened at Portsmouth and the horrors that David Sullivan and David Gold have inherited at West Ham, it’s time to make the test a little more vocational.

Poor old Pompey were robbed of a point at Fratton Park this weekend, but that’s water off a duck’s back to their fans. To the Portsmouth faithful, and by God are they faithful, the knowledge that John Utaka is earning GBP80,000 a week is far more disappointing. According to reports, the club are spending GBP4.3m a month on wages with some of that going to players who no longer play for the club. Now, I’m no Donald Trump, but I’m fairly sure that if you’re going to bankrupt yourself on paying huge wages to footballers, you really should try to ensure that they’re actually your footballers. Let’s make that the first question in the test, eh?

Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie, a concrete variable in this equation of incompetence, may be doing his utmost to stave off the club’s impending extinction, but if he and the hordes of owners he has served hadn’t signed so many ludicrous contracts in the first place, they’d would be fine. A similar fate very nearly befell West Ham where CEO Scott Duxbury and the infamous Icelandics reigned over a period of fiscal insanity. Might I suggest adding a quick game of ‘The Price Is Right’ into the fit and proper examination?

Take a playboy midfielder with a history of bust-ups and booze. He’s had a succession of injuries, he’s fought with his own team-mate (who incidentally you signed last season) and he once refused to play on the wing for Sir Bobby Robson. Let’s call him Dieran Kyer. What kind of contract should he have? What’s that? Four years at GBP60,000 a week? The price is wrong! Get out, Eggert!

Just think of the misery that football fans could be spared if we can push this one through.

EastStandBlue · Feb 21, 2010

Similar goings on at Rangers I'm led to believe... At the start of the season up to £20m was owed to clubs in transfer fees for players that had since moved on. Farcical.

MrB · Feb 21, 2010

According to Soccerbase, this is Portsmouth's cash transfers since Jan 09:

Bought:
Nadir Belhadj.....£4,400,000
Kevin Boateng...£4,000,000
Mike Williamson..£3,000,000

Sold:
Lassana Diarra..£20,000,000
Jermain Defoe...£15,000,000
Glen Johnson....£18,000,000
Peter Crouch....£ 9,000,000
Younes Kaboul..£ 5,000,000
Asmir Begovic...£ 3,250,000

So £70m of sales in a year and spent £11m. Yet they are still reportedly £70m in debt! How can a business be so incredibly mismanaged??

They've released 15 players on frees in that time as well (including our very own JFC and our on trial Black Man).

Yorkshire Blue · Feb 21, 2010

MrB said:
According to Soccerbase, this is Portsmouth's cash transfers since Jan 09:

Bought:
Nadir Belhadj.....£4,400,000
Kevin Boateng...£4,000,000
Mike Williamson..£3,000,000

Sold:
Lassana Diarra..£20,000,000
Jermain Defoe...£15,000,000
Glen Johnson....£18,000,000
Peter Crouch....£ 9,000,000
Younes Kaboul..£ 5,000,000
Asmir Begovic...£ 3,250,000

So £70m of sales in a year and spent £11m. Yet they are still reportedly £70m in debt! How can a business be so incredibly mismanaged??

They've released 15 players on frees in that time as well (including our very own JFC and our on trial Black Man).

1. They bought most of those players they then had to sell, for large fees
2. They paid them large wages
3. Fratton Park is probably the worst stadium in the top flight. They won't have the income streams available that the clubs with better infrastructures
4. Peter Storrie is a **** and Harry Redknapp also has lots to answer for.

MrB · Feb 21, 2010

Lassana Diarra..£20,000,000 - bought for £5.5m
Jermain Defoe...£15,000,000 - bought for £7.5m
Glen Johnson....£18,000,000 - bought for £4m

Yorkshire Blue · Feb 21, 2010

MrB said:
Lassana Diarra..£20,000,000 - bought for £5.5m
Jermain Defoe...£15,000,000 - bought for £7.5m
Glen Johnson....£18,000,000 - bought for £4m

Well there's £17mill off of their £70m sales for starters.

The players will have been on decent wages as well - I can't see an England player like Defoe having been on less than £30,000 a week - that's another £1.5m a year - and that is before signing on fees and bonuses which were likely to be considerable. I can't imagine they are being offered credit particularly cheaply either, so there will be a hefty interest charged on those transfer fees and wages.

Pompey probably spent around half of their overall losses on those three players alone. And they weren't the only players they signed on big wages, as they were carrying around a ridiculously big squad as 'Arry is a compulsive buyer.