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Once was bad enough. Now Portsmouth FC are facing a second spate of winding up hearings as the ramifications of Vladimir Antonov’s arrest continue to manifest themselves. It’s not difficult to invisage HMRC taking a far harder line this time around and, with no credible buyer in sight, the prospects look even grimmer than they did two years ago.
Which begs a question. Actually, it begs a whole torrent of very strong questions directed at the administrator and the Football League as to why the club was allowed to be sold to an individual with a background which is shady at best, for at least a second time.
Portsmouth’s first brush with the taxman prompted a round condemnation of the standards in place to ensure new owners are “fit and proper”. Time and again they have failed to protect clubs large or small and time and again they have allowed them to be bought by crooks. That it has been allowed to happen twice to the same club within two years is utterly inexcusable.
Doubts about Antonov were already well known when he made his move to buy Pompey, yet still the FA and the Football League allowed the sale, with the administrators no doubt keen to move the club on the anyone they could find. The sooner there is legislation passed to protect English football from itself, the better.
The media too are not exempt from criticism. With Pompey’s fall from the Premier League, the profile of the story is reduced, despite this being the latest in a series of events which began there. The financial madness of the league is, in part, at the root of many of the English game’s current problems.
Fan ownership to the fore
The fans are left to pick up the pieces. For Pompey this may involve nothing more than suffering a repeat of the pain they have already suffered. The club’s ability to compete, assuming they survive, will surely be further eroded. But it could get so much worse. What happens if Pompey are liquidated? A new phoenix club, under the control of the supporters trust is one possibility which would deserve consideration.
Ultimately, fan ownership is the way forward for clubs at all levels. The current perception that this is a novelty for small clubs only needs to be tackled. It is only due to financial doping that competing at the top table is all but impossible for the vast majority of clubs.
With a framework in place within which to set their ambitions, and those of the demanding fanbase, clubs could be protected from the worst excesses of those who choose to chase the dream.
We have seen club after club come within a whisker of being liquidated with Darlington, who may yet suffer that fate, the latest. If it takes a big club to completely disappear before English football is forced to clean up its act, it will be the saddest, most damning indictment possible.