Danish Saint

Shipperley was bad, as was Skacel and Saganowski.... even Pahars took to the ground quite regularly under huge dramatics, but the worst has to be Kachloul. I am glad the Teatrics Department at Saints never has reached Spanish and Italian heights.... long may that continue. Would hate to see Saints becoming a bunch of drama queens.

Wasn't part of both the Sky money and the parachute payments being diverted to paying off creditors under the FC rule? If so, Spuds should have been payed a long time ago. If not, more explaining to be done by the administrator or the liquidator.

Chanrai owns the sorry excuse for a stadium they call Fratton Park. During the whole Al-Fahim/Al-Mirage-affair, FP was secured against a loan from Chanrai.

According to this link: http://news.mail.ru/sport/news/football-foreign/5783888/ According to Google Translate: The acquisition of Portsmouth Russian businessman Vladimir Antonov and its control by CSI is on the verge of collapse. CSI and its shareholders have passed the so-called «fit and proper test» English Football League and have provided all the necessary evidence of their own stable of Finance position, but the real owners of Portsmouth Levi Kushnir and Balram Chanrai decided once again to change the terms of the deal and asked for an additional 3 million pounds a preliminary agreement (about 10% to the price originally agreed upon). CSI and Vladimir Antonov, refused to review the conditions and ready to get out of the deal, reports sports.ru.

Post nr. 36357 from anothersaintinsouthsea: I think a bit of mythology has developed but here are a few Crop Ho gems to lol at: Originally Posted by Corporate Ho Not going to heppen, certainly not signing Eto'o/ Villa etc but wouldn't be surprised to see Maradona acting as some sort of "ambassador" (call it what you want) for PFC lol Originally Posted by Corporate Ho But I thought no-one would buy Pompey Nick. You told me so repeatedly and so did the Romsey Retard. You kept saying you were a much more attractive proposition. Don't worry, I've read he's only 10 times as wealthy as Abramovich lol Originally Posted by Corporate Ho Yeah, it's way too high although our turnover for last year was £70m (!) and with the players that are out of contract in the summer such as Campbell, Lauren and Kanu who are big earners we'll shave around £15m off the wage bill. Even allowing for some replacements to come in that will take us down to around 60% of our income which is the Prem's guideline. like that ever happened. Originally Posted by Corporate Ho Keep up doofus, it's not Riquelme, it's Saviola. Players Out: Hreidarsson - Celtic/ Reading Sol Campbell - Newcastle/ Villareal Utaka - Rangers/ Lens/ Rennes Kanu - Fiorentina/ Ajax (£2m!!!) Lauren - AEK Athens/ Bolton/ Wigan Kranjcar - Arsenal Players In: Saviola/ Drenthe - Real Madrid (Loan) Joey Barton (£3m)/ Benjani/ Michael Johnson (£6m combined) (Man City) Edu - Valencia (Loan) Manuel Fernandes - Valencia (£6m) Gary O'Neil - Boro (£4.5m) Edin Dzeko - Wolfsburg (£7m) Mirel Radio - Steaua Bucharest (£4.5m) Ronald Zubar - Marseille (£6m) Aruna Dindane - Lens (£6m) Blaise Matuidi - St Etienne (£8m) Well you got Dindane in the end, lolz all round Originally Posted by Corporate Ho Was told late last night that the SA group looking to buy us had a hitch in their plans but that they now have the finance to buy the club pretty much in place. They have around £60m and Gaydamak wants £65m. Have been told that the deal should (unless something else crops up) happen some time in January. Have also been told that this group don't want Adams and that he's likely to be moved out before the deal is announced. So keep watching. think you should sack your source. Originally Posted by Corporate Ho I've been told that Pompey's financial situation is nowhere near as bad has been suggested by the media. Gaydamak sold his stake in one of his other companies for £35m recently (Antanta Pioglobal if anyone wants to look it up) so while he won't want to use all of that cash on PFC it gives him some breathing space if it's needed in an emergency. bless Originally Posted by Corporate Ho PMSL. So when Storrie says this he's the man to listen to but when he says we have no financial problems and that we won't be selling players in January you tell me he's a liar and that we're going bust. I love the way you lot change your tune when it suits you. mega lolz Originally Posted by Corporate Ho Unfortunately for me it looks as though the Chinese group (whose bid isapparently still on the table) are going to be outbid by the South African offer (see story below from the South African newspaper). Would rather the Chinese lot won as they seem prepared to put more into the club but Gaydamak will make more from the African one, not just initially but also an involvement in any stadium that's built. There's also a group from the UAE sniffing around who met with Gaydamak last week. Looks like I've ended up with egg foo yung on my face over the date on this one but I'm still willing to bet that we get new owners before you do. words fail me Originally Posted by Corporate Ho There were several groups/ individuals who have been looking at buying Pompey. The German group were one of them, as dear old Nick Nack confirmed he'd heard. The Arab group that were going to buy Charlton were also interested but dropped out when Gaydamak wanted a company he has interests in to be given the building contract for the new stadium. There was also a group backed by money from the Rausing family (owners of the Tetrapak, richest family in Britain I believe) and a couple of others. However, I've been told that a deal ha now been done and will be announced within a couple of weeks. it keeps on coming Originally Posted by Corporate Ho If the buyers are from the four groups I was told about I don't think spending £130m on a stadium will make much of a dent in their finances. keep dreaming Originally Posted by Corporate Ho Nick, nice to get into a decent & sensible conversation with you for once. The £130m you quote is not just for the stadium. The plans also include a 10,000 seat arena for concerts and also other commercial developments (I assume retail, bars etc). Finding a buyer doesn't seem to be a problem, we have at least four groups sniffing around and like I said earlier, I'm told a deal will be done before Xmas. Haven't heard about Germans but if you move a little further North in Europe you wouldn't be too far wrong from the group leading the pack at the moment. so which non-existent group were leading the non-existent pack? The scandinavian Al-Faraj? Originally Posted by Corporate Ho I've been told that there are three bids on the table for Pompey. One is a Thai group, one is a Russian guy whose name I've been told but won't repeat on here (he's very, very wealthy though - we're talking multiple billions) and the third is in all likelihood not arabs but Hong Kong Chinese - again mega Billions. go on, you may as well spill the beans now? Originally Posted by Corporate Ho Good to see what Stuey said - that mega rich investors wouldn't be lining up to buy Pompey - coming true isn't it? He's a genius that Stuey Maybe Stuey was right in the end eh? Just to recount the laughs and the silence from Corp Ho.

Were you still not awake, or hung over from last night, when you posted that?

That was a very bad piece of journalism. "Unnamed sources" and no background checks on either possible buyers. Had they made a simple Google-search, they would know what kind of dodgy Russians they are dealing with at Fratton.

LOL'ed at that last one... think he meant Christian Poulsen, Danish midfielder - now playing the worst ever at Liverpool....unfortunatly... He was great at Copenhagen, Schalke 04 and Seville... not so good at Liverpool and Juve...

Wasn't the Dubov/Antonov take-over of Pompey "imminent"?!.... It's gone very quiet again... And with no Corp Ho back gloating, I assume it's all a load of b*ll*cks..... in other words: Just another day at Pompey

Lallana, with Fonte and Hammond as close 2nd and 3rd.

As long as we secure automatic promotion, I really couldn't give a toss neither way. There are bigger things at stake here, than just 1st or 2nd from League 1.

What?!... No bus-references?! Adkins OUT!!

I predict that Pompey will cease to exist during the summer, unless a new buyer is found. Chanrai is clearly not going to invest anything in the club, and in its current state, no sane investor is going to throw any new money into that bottomless pit, the club is at the moment. Even these last two potential Russian buyers, Antonov and Dubov, has made no clear statement on how much money they are willing to invest, if any at all. In my view, the season ticket renewals is the last effort by the owners to squeeze money from their supporters into their own pockets.

A draw against Preston just put another mayor dent in their "push for promotion"....

The funny thing is, that when you do a simple Google seach on these two characters, Dubov and Antonov, you first get loads of references to their proposed takeover at either Bournemouth or Pompey. After you filter those away, you get loads of stories about their ties to the Russian mafia. When you filter those away it goes very quiet on both these guys....

I see Mr. Dubov has made some changes to his website: http://www.dubov.co.uk/portfolio/ Gone are now some of his old "companies" and has replaced them with even more dubious "companies". This time, there isn't even a homepage for the individual companies, just a short resume written apparantly by Mr. Dubov himself.

Not quite right.... this Dubov chap is the business partner of the guy, Antonov, who owns a bank over a music store, as far as I've gathered. So clearly, they've moved up a bit...

You're right. I stand corrected. So the question remains the same: Why would anyone buy Pompey? Well, apart from getting the 10.000 bestest fans in the world that is...

So if this deal goes through, Pompey will be owned by a couple of debt-ridden Russians, and only more criminal activity surrounding the club. Not even millionaires - just people buying companies on the verge of bankruptcy, milking a few millions of the Russian Central Bank, re-invest that money somewhere else and leaves the other company, as in Pompey, to rot...

The business partner of Mr. Dubov is one Vladimir Antonov. Article at http://www.rumafia.com/material.php?id=220 Especially like this part: New scam leads to Portsmouth Once the scheme of stealing money of the Central Bank failed to go through Urin, Alexander and Vladimir Antonov with Victor Yampolsky offered Mendeleev and the leadership of Russian Railways to carry it on. They found full support there. According to the bankers’ and state monopolies representatives’ plan, STB, on the edge of bankruptcy, will be merged with “The Bank of Savings and Loans" (Sberkredbank is owned by Vladimir Antonov). The new bank, based on its assets, may qualify for a stabilization loan from the Central Bank, which can amount to 10 billion rubles (about $ 320 million). Of this money 8 billion rubles will go to repay the debt to Russian Railways, about 800 million rubles to be transferred to MOITK (Moscow Regional Investment Trust Company), STB and the Antonovs being the old-time debtors. The funds from private individual deposits will add up to the remaining 1.2 billion rubles of the stabilization loan – the newly merged bank plans to offer good interest rates on deposits. The interested parties may thus divide among themselves more than 2 billion rubles and spend it at their discretion. For example, why not purchase the English "Portsmouth"? The newly merged bank will stay afloat for some time, then it can be driven to bankruptcy, assigning stabilization loan repayment to the Central Bank to Deposit Insurance Agency. According to Russian intelligence, the documents were recently filed in the Central Bank for the merger of STB and Sberkredbank, and they will be approved soon. Yampolsky was informed about this by Central Bank Deputy Chairman Melikian, who also promised that the newly merged bank will qualify for a stabilization loan for at least 10 billion rubles. Rumafia correspondents reported that in early February Yampolsky met with the head of the Russian Railways, Vladimir Yakunin. During the meeting they discussed the creation of the merged bank, what will happen to the debt and a possible stabilization loan from the Central Bank and the purchase of ... English Portsmouth. According to the same source, top managers of Russian Railways also expressed interest in the purchase of this football club. It is worth mentioning that Vladimir Antonov has been long haunted by the fame of Roman Abramovich who owns football club “Chelsea”. Antonov also wants to be a legal billionaire and owner of any team. Meanwhile, he cannot even become a legal owner of “Saab”. GM flatly refused to sell Saab to Spykers Cars for as long as Antonovs are the cowners of the latter. Father and son faked the sale of their stake in Spykers Cars (it was a bogus deal). This left Vladimir Antonov as of of the owners of Spykers Cars and the company then proceeded in purchasing Saab. Antonov just recently announced that he is going to purchase Spykers Cars again, which already owns Saab. Vladmir Antonov was not much more successful in purchasing a European football club. His negotiations to purchase “Glasgow Rangers” or "Bournemouth" ended in failure, after that he suddenly expressed interest in Russian football market. In 2010 he announced his intent to purchase Moscow Region “Saturn”. This was not a random choice. This club was on the edge of bankruptcy and owed 800 million rubles to MOITK. The amount of the debt became the purchase price for the club. The Antonovs, Yampolsky and STB were well familiar how to work with this entity, since they have been feeding on it for a long time. STB still owes 800 million rubles to MOITK. Antonov chose to play on this fact. He knows that this debt will be paid out of Central Bank budget, so you can just add couple hundred millions and get “Saturn” from MOITK. “Saturn” itself cannot pay a penny. However, Antonov’s plans did not find any support among his partners – Russian Railways already owns football club “Locomotiv”. As a result, “Saturn” has ceased to exist, and the masterminds of the grand scam decided to focus their efforts on the purchase of English “Portsmouth

Given Pompey's track record, they would most likely be sold to the only Russian millionaires without any money to spend...

I'll have a go at this: Davis Butterfield, Fonte, Jaidi, Harding Ox-C, Hammond, Schneiderlin, Lallana Lambert Barnard Subs: Bart, Seaborne, Dickson, Prado, Chaplow, Richardson, Forte.

Looking at their starting XI with subs: How many of those players are out of contract by the end of the season?

.."if you stay there will be trouble." but... .."if you go it would be double!" So go for it!!!

Is it just me, or does anyone else feel the season only starts about now for real?