These are two teams who have lived beyond their means for a long, long time. But they are not alone.
In the Premier League alone, most teams have done precisely this. A report a couple of years ago showed that every team bar Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham and Blackburn had a positive credit rating. And Blackburn have almost certainly lost that since Venky’s took them over – their current plight is much to do with them overspending.
So there are a maximum of three teams in the Premier League with sane finances. Every other team, from leaders Manchester City to Bolton Wanderers, has a frankly insane approach to spending. None of them are even approaching sanity. And so Portsmouth and Rangers’ plight should be illustrative that the ravages of administration and potential bankruptcy can happen to anyone.
Despite lurching from crisis to crisis, and living far beyond their means for years, Portsmouth fight on. Their case is ridiculous. This is a team which has paid far more than it can afford to compete in the Premier League and enjoy a run in Europe. That they can get away with this is absurd. They have been allowed to continue, and some suggest it would be wrong to punish their fans by liquidating the club. But it wouldn’t be a punishment from the tax authorities to the fans. It would be a punishment from the club. It is Portsmouth and Rangers faults that they are in the mess they are in. It is time that one of these teams are actually liquidated to show that living beyond your means cannot continue. There can be no other way to approach this.
Portsmouth can continue to just about pay their bills and go on. But there are small creditors – local businesses, writers and an ambulance service, who go without payment. That pampered footballers continue to be given their salaries whilst these people do not get the money owed to them is a disgrace. This club should not be allowed to trade and to compete until it has paid back all its debt, starting with the smallest creditor.
Rangers meanwhile, have a chaotic situation of their own making to deal with. Spending far beyond what they could reasonably hope to bring in has given them success in recent years. But who suffers? Their rivals. The same with Portsmouth. Allowing these teams to continue without being bankrupted cheats everyone. It cheats those who have been cheated by having to compete with a team with an insane spending strategy – in the Scottish Premier League Celtic have to compete with Rangers, but understandably don’t want to bankrupt themselves to do so. And they shouldn’t have to. That Manchester United have remained the best team in England despite their sane business model is remarkable in itself as they compete against Chelsea and Man City for honours. Yet these two teams have been among the worst perpetrators of the crime of financial doping, as Arsene Wenger calls it. It destroys the very element of sport – competition. And it is time to end it – closing down Portsmouth would be a good start.
