It's a horrible thought for football in general, but nightmarish for Portsmouth. The club's administrator Trevor Birch has revealed the club may not be able to complete the npower Championship season.
Pompey will not receive parachute payments from the Premier League as they will go straight to former owner Sacha Gaydamak and, in a statement on the club’s website, Birch said: “Following our discussions with the Premier League and Football League over the past few days, it has emerged that Portsmouth Football Club is unlikely to receive any further parachute payments or other league funding.
“We had previously stated that there was a real danger of the club running out of cash before the end of the season.
“The risk of this happening increases substantially without the money from the football authorities. Unless something significant happens, there is a real possibility that we may not be able to fulfil the season’s fixtures.”
Truly horrible for the club, but bad news too for certain Championship clubs who will lose all points won against Pompey, should they fail to complete their fixtures. Below is how how the table would look, right now, if those points were deducted.
Reading would move to second (automatic promotion), above West Ham, but Cardiff would drop out of the play-off positions. Coventry would join Doncaster in one of the TWO relegation spots, should Portsmouth be removed from the table.
How the league would look now, if Portsmouth were unable to complete their fixtures:
How the league looks now:
Image: Flickr Commons/Ben Sutherland
