Storrie must ‘bear responsibility’ as Pompey deducted points

By Martyn Ziegler

Thursday, March 18, 2010

PORTSMOUTH’s administrator Andrew Andronikou claims former chief executive Peter Storrie must bear part of the blame for the crisis that has engulfed the club.

Andronikou was speaking after the Premier League confirmed a nine-point deduction as a sanction for Portsmouth going into administration, action that should guarantee relegation.

Storrie, who is still acting as an advisor for the club, called the deduction "terribly unfair" but Andronikou said the former chief executive must take some of the responsibility for Portsmouth’s predicament.

Andronikou said: "Portsmouth is an example of how not to conduct business in the world of football.

"If you overspend and don’t budget accordingly you cannot rely on money from the owner coming in to bridge the gap, and in that it’s no difference to any other business.

"At the moment Mr Storrie is assisting us on an ad hoc basis. I felt in the very short term it would help us if we had him around to assist us in certain aspects of the business but this is very much in the short term.

"He was a senior officer of the company and the company has failed so it goes without saying that yes he must bear a large part of the responsibility, absolutely.

"I would also say that in the last few months that I believe he has exercised his judgement to try to save the club at all costs."

Andronikou confirmed that Portsmouth would not appeal against the Premier League’s ruling.

The league’s board imposed the points deduction yesterday morning after HM Revenue and Customs dropped their challenge to the club going into administration on Tuesday.

The deduction virtually guarantees relegation for Portsmouth, whose points total drops to just 10 points, 14 behind second-from-bottom Hull.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Thursday, March 18, 2010