5Live right now is having a special on the financial mess at Portsmouth and the amount of debt in the Premiership. The Premier League's man there claims the league as slashed it's debt by £1.5billion over the last two years.

They are obviously using Abramovich's conversion of all of his loans into equity for roughly half of that figure, but I would love to see their workings on the rest.

That's what I thought. Newcastle's relegation must be around £100million knocked off that amount as well. What about Man Utd's bond issue? Does that affect the status of debt?

No, it just replaces one kind of debt for another.

Surely the volume of debt at clubs like Portsmouth and West Ham increased significantly over the period in question.

That debate made me shit blood through my eyes.

There's more here on the debt 'reduction'.

He's seriously confused, isn't he?

Portsmouth's administrator is now saying that anybody wanting to buy the club will need to put down at least £30million. Does this mean the assets still outway the clubs liabilities? I thought Pompey was going to end up being one of those 'buy it for a quid as long as take on all the debt' scenarios.

Portsmouth have very few assets - £30m is likely to cover the cost of wages between now and June, and any debts that can't be wriggled out of through a CVA.

The manner in which the debt figure appears to be expanding exponentially in the period before the hearing on the CVA (thus diluting the taxman's vote) brings back very bad memories of the Leeds situation.

Hypothetically, if Pompey went out of business and an "AFC Portsmouth" (though I hate the prefix being shorthand for a replacement club) was formed, what league would they have to start out in?

Wessex Division One South would be their best bet:

www.tonykempster.co.uk/wess1miles.htm

Putting them in any other division would cheating.

Harry Truscott wrote:
Hypothetically, if Pompey went out of business and an "AFC Portsmouth" (though I hate the prefix being shorthand for a replacement club) was formed, what league would they have to start out in?

It depended on whether the FA adjudged an AFC Portsmouth to be a reformation of an old club, or a completely new club.

If the former, then at least two division lower than the league the old club was in, so no higher than the third division. If the latter, then the lowest level of the non-league system at which they can safely be playing with the likely level of supporters they'd have and would be taking away with them. As such a league is likely to be regionalised, the chances are that they'd have high away support, so I'd have thought Southern League One SW.

The funny thing is, Telford were treated as a reformation, as were Halifax, but Scarborough weren't. The FA doesn't have an objective test for what a new club counts as, but the nearest one can see is that if you play at the same ground as the old club, you've got a fighting chance.

More here.

And speaking of Kuddly Ken . . .

Politicians from the three main parties and football supporters' groups have united in calling for the Football League to make public who owns its clubs after the league approved as "fit and proper" the offshore owners of Leeds United while keeping their identity private.

Could winning the FA cup cause more problems than it solves for Portsmouth?

Even without the FA witholding prize and TV money from the club wouldn't a lot of players be eligible for major bonuses for winning the cup? Would those bonuses overshadow any prizemoney?

It'd be pretty terrible financial planning for incentive bonuses to cost more than the economic benefit of winning a trophy. So, quite possible at Pompey.

NHH wrote:
Harry Truscott wrote:
Hypothetically, if Pompey went out of business and an "AFC Portsmouth" (though I hate the prefix being shorthand for a replacement club) was formed, what league would they have to start out in?

It depended on whether the FA adjudged an AFC Portsmouth to be a reformation of an old club, or a completely new club.

If the former, then at least two division lower than the league the old club was in, so no higher than the third division. If the latter, then the lowest level of the non-league system at which they can safely be playing with the likely level of supporters they'd have and would be taking away with them. As such a league is likely to be regionalised, the chances are that they'd have high away support, so I'd have thought Southern League One SW.

The funny thing is, Telford were treated as a reformation, as were Halifax, but Scarborough weren't. The FA doesn't have an objective test for what a new club counts as, but the nearest one can see is that if you play at the same ground as the old club, you've got a fighting chance.

More here.

Thanks NHH & Paul. I seem to remember at the public meeting to form AFC Wimbledon a mention that they had missed a cut-off to apply for the Isthmian/Ryman Division 1 (Step 4?) which is why they started in the CCL (Step 5).

I think that we put in a late application to the Ryman which meant we needed 95% votes in favour, rather than the usual 75% (or something very like that).

It's never been Carshalton announced who voted against us but we're pretty sure who at least one of the buggers was.

Etienne wrote:
It'd be pretty terrible financial planning for incentive bonuses to cost more than the economic benefit of winning a trophy. So, quite possible at Pompey.

That's exactly what happened when Pompey won the Cup in 2008. The club forked out more in bonuses for the players than the club earned from the cup run (and win).
www.portsmouth.co.uk/frattonlatest/James...or-FA-Cup.6092225.jp

NHH wrote:
Harry Truscott wrote:
Hypothetically, if Pompey went out of business and an "AFC Portsmouth" (though I hate the prefix being shorthand for a replacement club) was formed, what league would they have to start out in?

It depended on whether the FA adjudged an AFC Portsmouth to be a reformation of an old club, or a completely new club.

If the former, then at least two division lower than the league the old club was in, so no higher than the third division. If the latter, then the lowest level of the non-league system at which they can safely be playing with the likely level of supporters they'd have and would be taking away with them. As such a league is likely to be regionalised, the chances are that they'd have high away support, so I'd have thought Southern League One SW.
Would the fact that a member of their supporters trust now owns the old company of that name (the guy that was getting bailiffs' letters a few months ago), and Pompey now trade under Portsmouth City Football Club, have any bearing upon this potential situation?

I very much doubt it.

What is interesting though is that if Pompey actually won the FA Cup, they'd be unable to play in the Europa League, as I'm 99% sure they don't have a licence to compete in European competition.