The Pompey Chimes Ring Again!!

The hunt for the new Pompey Boss continues.

Names in the frame are Avram Grant, Sven Goran Ericson, Slaven Bilic, Ruud Gullit, Alan Curbishley, Terry Venebles, Greame Souness, Glenn Hoddle and many others.

Currently the only two who have public announced their interest are Avram Grant and Ruud Gullit.

Sven has said that he is committed to Mexico and not prepared to leave.

There are rumblings on the continent that Bilic, one of the least well paid coached in Europe, would be interested.

Also, following the win over Man City, current Caretaker Boss Paul Hart is in the frame.

Personally I would like Grant or Bilic.

I dont want Hart to get the job only because I dont want to risk him leaving the club if things went wrong, cause he's an nice guy and important for our youth development system.

I would be totally agains Sven, Souness, Hoddle and Venebles. Sven because he was bad as England boss, Souness because he has a history of destroying teams, Venebles because he almost destory Pompey before and Hoddle because he has a very bad reputation on the South Coast and wasn't a good manager in the league anyway.

Once again big news comes from the South Coast and big things are expected in the near future of Portsmouth Football Club as Pompey owner Alexandre "Sacha" Gaydamak agrees to sell to Arab Billionaire Dr. Sulaiman Al Fahim. From www.bbc.co.uk:



Portsmouth agree to takeover bid

Al Fahim helped broker the deal which saw Man City taken over

Portsmouth have accepted a bid from United Arab Emirates businessman Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim to buy the club.

The move follows negotiations led by Portsmouth executive chairman Peter Storrie on behalf of club owner Alexandre Gaydamak.

Al Fahim was the initial figurehead of the Abu Dhabi United Group when they took control of Manchester City last year, but is now acting for himself.

The club has not released any details of the figures involved in the deal.

Portsmouth will now wait for legal and financial formalities to be completed.

"A period of formal legal and financial due diligence will commence next week," said a club statement. "We cannot make any further comment on the future structure of the club until this period has been completed."

Portsmouth added that they hoped the deal will be concluded "as soon as possible" after the talks, which were held in Rome.

Gaydamak, who has been at the club since January 2006, said late last year that he wanted to sell.

The Franco-Russian initially bought into Pompey as joint owner when he struck a deal with then-chairman Milan Mandaric. He then bought out Mandaric, who now owns Leicester City, for about £32m.

Under Gaydamak's ownership Portsmouth won the 2008 FA Cup but he says he can "no longer invest the time required to oversee the running of the club".

Since the FA Cup victory, Portsmouth have seen Harry Redknapp depart to manage Tottenham, while his successor Tony Adams lasted just 16 games in charge.

Paul Hart replaced Adams at the helm and guided the club to Premier League safety, but his future at the club is still up for discussion.

Gaydamak had earlier stated that he had rejected two offers for Pompey, as he wanted to sell to a buyer who would be committed to funding a new stadium and training ground for the club.

Al Fahim has previously been linked with an audacious bid for Chelsea.


Pompey challenge excites Al Fahim

Prospective new owner Sulaiman Al Fahim has spoken of his ambitious plans for Portsmouth, with a takeover set to be completed in the next few weeks.

"I'm excited about the club, and I've signed the memorandum," he told The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi.

"I will develop the academy there to develop local talent, try to bring in new players and set up relationships with clubs in Europe, Asia and Africa."

The property tycoon has vowed to travel to Britain to watch his new team play.

Al Fahim, a billionaire born in 1977, acted as the initial figurehead when Abu Dhabi United Group took control of Manchester City last summer.

His involvement became more distant as Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed took charge, but it sparked an interest in English football and he is now set to succeed current Portsmouth owner Alexandre Gaydamak.

Nigel Tressider, chairman of the official Portsmouth FC supporters club, welcomed the developments and said: "It's fantastic news.

"He will be welcomed with open arms by the terrific Portsmouth fans. "I don't think he would have bought the club unless he has enough money to put it on the right track, and that is going to take a lot of money, hundreds of millions of pounds."

Saw some reports this evening that the new owner wants Sven Goran Erikkson to come in as the new manager

Course, I'm against Sven as manager cause he's hardly been brilliant in his last three jobs (England, Man City and Mexico) but I dont have a say in the matter, right?

In the end, if he can succor Premier League Survival and help build and bring in new talent from the youth acedemy that Paul Hart (who lead us to survival) has been working on then I will be happy and consider his tenure, if it happens, as being a success.

Al Fahim as said in the local paper that he wants to build ties to European, Asian and South American teams to raise the clubs profile and bring in talent from those areas (who these teams are he doesn't say) and to help this process along he sees the perfect figurehead chairman of Portsmouth as being Diego Maradonna.

So there you go. In just under a day the potential (and hopefully) new owner has said, or at least implied, that he wants to bring in two of my least favorite footballing personalities.

Still that doesn't matter to me. All I'm interested in is Al Fahim's influence in making Pompey a stronger club and finally getting these damned training facilities and youth acedemy that have been on the card for year built and upgrading Fratton Park, something that has been talked about for aouut 7 to 10 years.

The extra moneys a not unwelcomed bonus

Beware of rant.

Before the takeover was finalized I could pretty much guarentee that the pundits would have said about Pompey: "they dont have enough money and they haven't brought in enough players and are going to struggle and likely be relegated" and now that the takeover has gone through and we've singed Tommy Smith from Watford, Kevin-Prince Boateng from Spurs, Michael Brown from Wigan, Aruna Dindane on loan from Lyon and Jamie O'Hara on loan from Spurs I could pretty much guarentee that the pundits would say: "they haven't signed enough quality and are to struggle and likely be relegated".

Phil Thompson particularly annoyed me today when he said, on Soccer Saturday, bascially, that "the quality they've brought is not as good as the quality they've lost"

These bloody people have been complaining that we haven't had the finances or set up needed to have players like Crouch, Defoe, Diarra, Muntari, Distin, Johnson, etc, and been moaning about how bad Pompey's finances were because of it and now we're signing players that we can pay and sustain the club with at the same time its not good enough!

We cant afford to buy or pay players of the same quality of players we've lost!

I'm sorry if that isn't good enough for the likes of Phil Thompson, Paul Merson, Charlie Nicholas and Matt Le Tissier but I for one would rather live within the means of the club and succor the clubs long term future in stead of going for short lasting success and financial ruin.

We are not Chelsea, we are not Man City. We do not have a 30-40,000+ seater stadium, we do not have high class training facilities, we do not have an established and thriving youth acedemy, we do not have a global market, we do not have a continental market.

We are Portsmouth, one of the smaller giants of English football, neglected and lacking investmeent for almost 50 years. The survival of the club has alway been more important than league positions and high class players.

To improve we need to live within our means and invest in the club not just the team.

I dont care whether we become boring Portmouth, nor do I care if the Pundits like us or not, as long as the club continues to survive and gradually improve I shall be happy.

I remember, years ago, on INReview I said the South Coast clubs are survivers. Southampton have let me down in that in recent years but Bournemouth have proven it. I shall maintain that Pompey are survivers until proved otherwise.

We have not been relegated since 1988.

That's a 21 year stint without relegation. The fans know what it's like to be in a relegation battle, the coaching staff know what it's like to be in a relegation battle, the board - mostly - know what it's like to be in a relegation battle and most of the players know what its' like to be in a relegation battle.

I think we'll survive like we usually do - and the Pundits can go to hell for all I care!

Without supporters willing to purchase jerseys, make some noise in the stands, and even rant to a bunch of Americans who, for the most part, dont even know what football is, a club is doomed.

Players in or out, money spent or saved, stands small or large, at least it looks like one of the pieces to the puzzle is in place

I can totally understand where you are coming from WT there are not enough cluibs who are willing to live withint thier means and do what is reasonable to survive. I have seen it happen with my team who in the 90's spwent millions on players to achieve the dream of winning in Europe and as of today we are still paying for chasing the impossible.

Exactly Lodge. Pundits those those on Sky want every club that get a little bit of money to be like Man City of Chelsea and spend it all on players and praise them when all is going well on the pitch but then when things go wrong they turn on them in an instant and talk like they alway knew everything was going to go wrong. Did these people learn nothing from Leeds?

We're being taken over again and once again by a Middle-Eastern investor. For whatever reason Al Fahim has struggled to produce the funding he needed and has agreed to sell his majority to Ali Al-Faraj and the documents have been signed and only need confirmation from Saudi Arabia to go through. Al Fahim will keep around 10% of the club but Al-Faraj will now be the man controling the club. Al-Faraj has already passed the Premier League's Fit and Proper test so the deal is expected to be finalized in short order.

Well the players were paid the back wages they were due earlier this afternoon I assume those wages came from Al - faraj so that would indicate the deal is done and dusted

The deal has definately gone through. Al Fahim will remain as non-executive chairman until at least 2010/2011 while Al-Faraj will join the Board of Directors, Peter Storrie retains his position as Chief Executive Office of the club.

Al-Faraj has pledged money for Paul Hart to spend in January should he want to but has said so far that his main effort will be put into building the new training facilities (finally!) and enlarging Fratton Park.

Avram Grant has returned to Pompey in the role of Director of Football. Grant had previously been a Technical Director at Pompey when Harry Redknapp was manager and is a former Chelsea and Isreali national manager.

Grant will begin work on Monday.

It's Hart-breaking news really as Paul Hart has left Pompey. As I feared when he took over perminately in the Summer things went wrong for Hart and now he's out of a job and its such a shame for such a nice man who handled such a difficult situation with great dignity.

Hart was asked by the club to step dwon from the managers job but was offered a technical directors job where he would be responsible for dealing with players between 16 and 21 contracted to the club but decided it would be better for him to leave completely. His reasons for doing so are at the moment unknown to me but I am sad to see him go.

Only at Arsenal and for one half against Blackburn have Pompey been outmatched this season and if only we could have found a forward who could find the net we would be at least mid-table but most of the great changes made by the team were squandered.

Hart had a difficult job when he took over but steared the club to safety but dispite surviving the relegation battle his problems increased. Sasha Gaydamak refused to invest anymore money, Al Fahim take over took a very long time and didn't bear the promised fruit, Al Faraj's take over occured too late to be of any real benefit to him, he was forced to lose over half the established main team to keep the club afloat and had to make do with loan signing and free transfers before the final few weeks of the transfer window when he was able to swoop for a couple of players before the window closed.

Hart has been the most respectable Pompey Boss of recent times and deserves a lot of respect for the good job he did under trying circumstances and I hope that he will soon return to management and achive great success with someone else. He is a manager who doesn't deserve to be out of the game for too long.

Favorite to replace him as Pompey Boss is Darren Ferguson after Avram Grant ruled himself out of the running. I would be happy to see Ferguson come to the club but he would need an experianced manager with him to help him at such a high level. Grant would, no doubt, offer some help but I would expect Ferguson to bring in a good assistant as well - and personally I would like to see Jim Smith return to the club again.

A bit of clarification is needed. Earlier this week there were reports that Avram Grant had ruled himself out of the running for the managers job. Obviously those reports were false as he is now the manager of Pompey.

A famous triumph over Liverpool and no post from WT!? He must be hung over

The win over Liverpool was not that good. Watching the game live I can tell you that Liverpool were not interested in winning the game, the player on the pitch for the Red interested in winning was Torres, and the only player giving any real effort were Carragher Torres and, on occaison, Gerrard.

Liverpool strated out the stronger but failed to trouble Begovic then they were caught on the counter and Belhadj buried the ball from a difficult angle that left Reina stranded. Liverpool seemed to lose almost all interest then and the sending off of Mascerano (which was probably the right decision) was the killing blow.

Pompey weren't troubled by this lackluster Liverpool side and dominated for the majority of the game. Liverpool only once seriously troubled Canadian/Bosnian Goalkeeper Asmir Begovic when Gerrard's shot was deflected off of two Pompey players and Begovic had to pull out a superb save to claw the ball away from the goal.

Piquionne's well taken goal, again from a difficult angle, from a cross created by Kevin Prince-Boateng from nothing sealed Liverpools fate.

It was a good win for Pompey which will hopefully launch our survival bid. In the five games since taking over from Hart, Avram Grant has managed to acquire 7 points from a possible 15 where some of those games were against Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool. So there is definately hope for the future and hopefully the transfer embargo will be lifted from us for January.

As for Liverpool, there is something seriously wrong with that club. They came to Fratton Park with no drive, no inspiration and, worst of all, no desire to win. The second anything went against them they rolled over and bearly troubled us.

Now what we need today is Chelsea to crush West Hame so we're not bottom at Christmas and then push on from their. We play West Ham after that and that will be a very interesting game.

Lens are being utterly pathetic recently. They claim that Pompey have missed payment due to that club and have taken action to get that payment (which is understandable) but they've called for FIFA and UEFA to put Pompey out of business and kick us out of the league because of it.

Now I can understand the Nadir Belhadj one. If we didn't have the money to buy him under Adam's tenure then we shouldn't have bought him in the first place so they have a right to be annoyed about that. However the situation with this is easilly solved. Beldhaj has told us he wants to leave so the solution should be that any money made from that transfers gets used to pay back Lens the money their due, if the trasnfer doesn't raise enough then Lens get paid back on a monthly basis but if it raised more than was originally agreed then they only get paid back what is owed.

The Dindane one on the other hand I dispute. Lens claim that there was an agreement on Dindane's loan deal that if Dindane played more than 10 games we had to buy him perminantly. Now, if its true and someone at Pompey agreed to this totally ridiculas and unrealistic deal then that moron should be named in all the papers and sacked the club. I dont think its true because it sounds like such an unrealistic deal. Who would ever sign a player on loan if a clause of that loan was that the player couldn't evenly play a dousen games before you had to buy him, especially if the club that he's being loaned to has massive fincial problems?

I feel Lens President Gervais Martel is just putting the boot in while we're down really. Our financial plight is well know to all and he's relishing kicking us while we're down. It would be an entirely different story to him if Lens were in this position.

Why dont people like Martel take shots at Man Utd and Liverpool and the like. They are operating constantly in the red and have debts which make Portsmouth's original 60 odd million pound debt look like pocket money or spare change. They're still allowed to operate, they still allowed to buy players and the only reason they can keep spending is because of Premier League and Champions League money.

Players have gone unpaid again (the club said it should be sorted by next week) and payments to clubs for transfers have been missed for which and embargo has been laid on the club and HMRC are also taking their shots.

HMRC have been paid 5.7 million pounds by the club since Al Faraj took over are still getting paid what their due but Pompey were late on one payment and HMRC got a court order demanding immediate payment. Pompey are contesting it in January but even so it still feels like HMRC are being just as unreasonable as Martel and are just putting the boot in while its fashionable to do so.

In the end I think its more important to pay HMRC and the players than it is to pay Lens et al. In the immediate future it is more important to pay HMRC and the players becuase that keeps us in business as a club while the clubs we owe money to can survive without it for a while. I fully expect that everyone we owe money to will eventually get paid back but its unreasonable I think to demand money here and now without delay if its so obvious that they club your demanding it from can't do it.

Pompey have been taken over for the fourth time this season as Balram Chainrai siezed control from Ali Al-Faraj. Chainrai had gotten fed up without getting his investment re-emberssed and actived a clause in his laon contract which allowed him to take Al-Faraj's 90% shareholding.

Chainrai has stated that he is not interested in owning the club, controling the club or running the club. He claimed he has just taken the stocks and will hold onto them until a new owner can be found. In the mean time he will work through his company Potpin to ensure Pompey can regain a firm and stable financial ground and make the club more attractive for a future buyer.

Personally I think this is good for Pompey because we now know where the owner stands. We know he's not in it for the long hall and is just transitionary but we also know that he has money available to help him and we're more unlikely to go under with him in charge than with Al-Faraj.

I was trawling through the internet a little while ago when I came across this article from Des Kellet for the Mail Online : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1250668/DES-KELLY-Portsmouth-cheats-let-wall.html?ITO=1490 in which Mr. Kelley is advocating putting Pompey out of business and stating firmly his opposition to the proposed measure of the Premier League of giving us our "parachute payment" early so we can pay the tax-man.

Mr Kelley has, in the course of this article, stated that he while he has sympathy for the Pompey fans he believed Portsmouth are cheats that deserve no help from the Premier League or anyone and that becuase of the actions of the owners who didn't keep anyone informed on how bad the debts were becoming until it got out of hand whatever sympathies he has for Pompey fans are negated because we supported the spending when we were successful.

Perhaps it would be worth pointing out to Mr Kelley that we Pompey fans didn't know the Club was overspending when we had our most recent on-field success. Perhaps it would be worth mentioning that nobody except the owner Sasha Gaydamak knew how much we were overspending. Perhaps it would also be worth mentioning to him that the pundits and reporters and columnist were equally supportive of Pompey's rise when they didn't know of the overspending either but something tells me that Mr Kelley wouldn't care.

As far as I can tell all Mr Kelley is interested in is the fact that Pompey are in financial debt which came about because of missmanagement from three seperate owners and now he can get his kicks in with the rest of the media world who want to villify the club for those three individuals cock-ups.

I doubt whether Mr Kelley cares that the Premier League share some fault in this situation. It is the Premier League who allowed these owners to take over without checking to see if they had the finances available to support a Premier League side, it was the Premier League who allowed Pompey to aquire massive debt without once checking to see if the club was being run reasonably and it was the Premier League along with the FA that demand that football debts be paid before Tax, PAYE and VAT which had allowed the amount that Pompey owe HMRC to increase to a very high amount.

If Pompey go out of business then fingers must be pointed not only at the people running the club but also at the Premier League and the FA for allowing a club such a situation to develop, expecially in light of the fact that Leeds, Notts County and numerous other English Clubs have face similar financial meltdowns ever since the FA and Premier League brought in their football debts first rule.

But back to Mr Kelley and his article. I'm sure he was one of many media men who supported Pompey's rise to the top when all seemed good behind the scenes from a distance and never questioned the money side of it but now that its clear there is a substancial debt which could end the Clubs 112 year history he's only too keen to put the boot in.

Not only that but he had the unmitigated gall to imply we Pompey fans were ignorant fools for not seeing the financial meltdown on the horizon when we were lifting the FA Cup and challenging for the top six places as if suggesting he saw it all along.

Well then, Mr Kelley, if you saw this financial meltdown looming why the bloody hell didn't you say anything!?! Were you just waiting for the chance to sit back and say "I knew this would happen" as Pompey fought for its life!?! Perhaps you take some kind of enjoyment out of seeing a club face oblivion, perhaps you feel some kind of glee in seeing clubs put out of business or coming close to it, regardless your holier-than-thou attitude really doesn't sit well with me so you can take you article and you can take you views and shove it!

Rant over.

One thing that I would say is that the blame cannot just be laid at the door of the 3 owners that Portsmouth have had, Portsmouth will be like any business they will have accounts and other financial experts and yes while it's the owners that signed the cheques and so on if these experts said nothing or very little then they are as much to blame as the owners.

I have long had an issue with foreign owners and players coming to the premiership always said that it would end in tears for somebody but as long as there are foreign buyers and English sellers then it's going to keep going I guess. I would blame the FA for the Tax, PAYE and VAT issues yes it has it's opponents but clubs were given time to prepare for this ( Inland revenue giving somebody time to understand how to pay, must be a record) and while I understand the bill has gone up hugely the fact remains had Pompey made the payments in full on time or spoke to the HMRC and explained they had issues making payments this would not have spirralled the way it had. Yes some other clubs have struggled with these payments but they are far from the majority and like Pompey it's not just the tax man that wants his money.

I know it seems right now that people are putting the boot in but I don't think you can blame those that want their money and maybe Lens went to far but remember they aren't exactly in a strong position money wise maybe this threat was to express how angry they are at waiting and maybe they don't fully know the situation and how bad it is for Pompey. As for everyone else I do believe that some are relishing this but the vast majority in the English no British football want Pompey to survive but it's a difficult situation they are in and I thin as such a lot of the advice that comes is very hard to accept.

Take it from a fan who's club is owned by the bank it's only going to get harder next season

I know that the whole footballing world isn't against us Lodge and I know that Pompey's board and staff are, in a large part, to blame for the problems we find ourselves in but what I dont need and what I wont accept is people like Mr Kelley who are determined to see the fans suffer because of the mistakes of those people running the club and, not only that, but people who say or imply that that saw this coming but clearly didn't.

What I dont need right now, as a Pompey fan, is people telling me that the club should be driven out of business. If it was Man Utd in this situation instead of us you could guarentee that everybody in the press would be saying that Man Utd have to be saved at all cost but because its Pompey its more of a mixed reaction.

Whats been propsed isn't anything extreme. What's been propsed is thayt Pompey would get the money would would get if we get relegated now in stead of at the end of the season so that we can pay of the Tax and work towards stablising the club so that a buyer can be found. If we have to go into administration to do it that I would be happy with that because we would still be in business, we would get relegated but we'd still be around.

So I think its a bit in poor form for people like Mr Kelley to advocate putting us out of business.

double post, ignore.

We've lost today against Stoke in a game that we should have at least drawn. We had a perfectly good goal ruled off-side by a linesman and clearly on the replay, even in normal time, Piquionne is onside so the Linesman got that completely wrong and the guy who set up Stoke's winner shouldn't even have been on the pitch, he should have bee sent off for a foul on O'Hara and was bloody lucky the Ref didn't see it.

Realistically Pompey are probably down now - were not mathematically down but certainly realistically. There aren't many more games which we can win to get back into the survival scrap.

We haven't had a scrap of good luck all season.

Didnt get to see all of that one, but I totally agree on the offside call. Looked good in real time, looked good in slo-mo. I feel bad for ya. 3 points wouldve brought some clubs within firing range, not to mention keeping Stoke close. A loss like that is hard to take

What I dont get, listening to the radio today, is how some Daily Mail reporter or columnist could say that if Pompey get relegated after going into administration and get a parachute payment from the Premier League they would have an unfair advantage over other teams in the Championship.

The gist of his arguement was that deducting points now will change nothing in the Premier League and could stop Pompey losing points next year with the added benefit of getting a big chunk of money from the Premier League.

He's wrong however becuase Pompey will almost be guarenteed to start next season in minus-points if we go into administration. I read a report on the internet yesterday which said the FA was considering deducting us up to 20 next season regardless of what league we're.

The money we'll recieve wont be an unfair advantage either because all of that is likely to go towards outstanding debts.

It's a witch hunt against Pompey in the media. When there was talk of getting the parachute payment early to pay off the taxman it was deemed by the press to be an unfair advantage for Pompey and Pompey were called cheats, when there was talk of selling our best players outside of the Transfer Window to raise money to pay off the taxman it was deemed an unfair advantage for Pompey and Pompey were called cheats and all the time the media were saying "why dont they just go into administration" but now that there's talk of the club going into administration its being deemed an unfair advantage to Pompey for this season and next season.

What can the club do that will be considered fair then?