Pompey debts rise to €162m but creditors agree deal

PORTSMOUTH will have more than two-thirds of their debts written off after a deal with creditors was thrashed out yesterday but have been hit with a further £17million (€19.9m) claim from the taxman.

The club’s administrator Andrew Andronikou revealed the new claim to a meeting of creditors today which takes Pompey’s total debt to £138m (€162m).

The creditors yesterday voted in favour of a Company Voluntary Arrangement, a repayment deal where most will get just 20p in the pound over five years, but that should secure Portsmouth’s future.

The big losers will be former owners Alexandre Gaydamak, Sulaiman Al-Fahim and Ali Al-Faraj and the tax man, whose debts are unsecured.

Football creditors such as other clubs and current owner Balram Chainrai, who is a preferential creditor, will not lose out, and neither will charities or small creditors owed £2,500 or less.

Andronikou said the club was still up for sale but no offers have been made and Chainrai could now stay on as owner with vastly reduced debts to cope with.

Asked about Chainrai remaining, Andronikou said: “We don’t know. The club is still up for sale and looking for a purchaser and have not received any firm offers, but in the last few weeks there has been interest from a variety of parties saying the most appropriate time to look is when the CVA starts.”

Portsmouth are expected to sell off players in the summer in an attempt to slash the wage bill from £48million a year to £10million, a figure Andronikou believes it right for the Championship.

Manager Avram Grant’s future is still unresolved and he wants a number of guarantees before he will commit to staying in charge.