Staff Not Paid Again

Last updated : 02 February 2010 By Jim Bonner
For the fourth time this season, Pompey players and staff have not received their wages on time.

After the sales of Younes Kaboul and Asmir Begovic, it was expected that the staff would be paid yesterday but that is not the case. The media have reported that staff should be paid today or tomorrow, and the players should be paid by the end of the week.

It was also revealed that Avram Grant has only been paid once since taking over from Paul Hart but that is due to a "tax code" issue rather than financial problems. You couldn't make it up could you?

Sacha Gaydamak was due to be paid £9 million by the end of Sunday, but predictably that hasn't been paid. Gaydamak stands to lose a lot of money if Pompey go into administration so I wonder what his reaction will be to this news?

On the issue of potentially going out of business in the next 10 days, Gerald Vernon-Jackson, the leader of Portsmouth City Council, revealed that the council had discussed helping the club pay the £7.5 million debt.

But, he revealed that PFC have nothing to loan the money against and he could not justify giving £7.5 million of taxpayers money to the football club.

However, he did say that he has place strict planning orders on the land at Fratton Park that would mean that if it were to be reposesessed then the land would have to retain its status as an open-air outdoor leisure facility.

Therefore, it would be highly unlikely (but not impossible) that Fratton Park would ever be demolished and turned into flats or a supermarket should the club go under.

Just another normal day for all of us Pompey fans, then.