Dark Munster

Why?

Two scenarios: If Cheats don't go up this season, they're f*cked. If BC's gamble pays off and they do weasel their way up, their fate is less certain. The average Premier League team receives £45 million from Sky, etc. My guess is that BC will play the kids for one year, do a Derby and go down with single digit points, he'll trouser the one year PL bounty (and secure most of future parachute payments via more "loans") and Cheats FC will be f*cked. Alternatively, he would be able to sell the club to some sucker with more money than sense, and the Cheats may have a chance of survival.

This has 3-0 written all over it.

I've edited it for you.

Yes, but your summers are shite.

Wigley and Gray were even worse.

Unfortunately the FL sans MaWhiney appear to have a lot less teeth.

No-one in their right mind predicted it.

This has got 0-0 written all over it.

Bastards.

Yes, but your summers are nasty.

Until someone scores, it certainly does.

He'll probably cough it up as a loan, to be paid back (with significant interest) after Cheats FC either sleaze their way up, or go into administration yet again, (or both).

The Portsmouth board has told Steve Cotterill, the manager, he can make up to four signings in the January transfer window as the club look to bounce straight back into the Premier League. And so it continues. Gambling is indeed the appropriate term. Heads they go up and stave off execution (possibly temporarily, unless they can find a sucker owner with some cash - BC will extract as much as he can). Tails it's curtains (BC will extract as much as he can and then toss out the rotten corpse).

Well that's the propaganda the Cheats keep spouting, but it looks fairly solid to me. Plus BC could bring in a few more loans in the Window if he thinks the gamble may pay off. CVA be damned of course if it goes tits up. An owner who cared for the future of the club would avoid yet another administration at all costs, considering the FL would throw the kitchen sink at them if they did. Unfortunately for the phew they don't have such an owner.

Sulaiman al-Fahim, the former Portsmouth chairman, will ask his legal advisers to write to the club for clarification regarding the 10% share he retains from his previous ownership. It is thought that this share is represented by the £5m he is owed by the club. If so, as an unsecured creditor, he may receive around £1m over the next five years under the terms of the Company Voluntary Arrangement with which Portsmouth emerged from administration. Hands up those who think the Ice Cream Doctor actually invested £5m in the club? Do I hear £4m? £3m? £2m? £1m?

Whilst relegation would be hilarious, I'd happily settle for them simply not to go up. Surely that would be enough for BC to pull the plug and asset strip all he can. I can't see him funding Lawrence, Nugent, Kitson et. al. for another season. Squeaky bum time for the blue phew.

Tick tock .....

Ah, but it was the PL who sanctioned Al-Mirage. Also, the FL are more trigger happy with the points deductions (or at least they were). 4) MaWhiney retiring at just the right time. It all looks like a pact with the devil type situation, doesn't it? Here's hoping!

“Richards could find nothing wrong with Al Faraj.” Shouldn't that be "Richards could not find Al Faraj"? I'm sure the PL were confident that they'd seen the last of the Cheats for a long time. So I wonder how they'll feel if Cheats FC somehow achieve promotion this season? I suspect the PL will be begging the FL to dock them enough points at the 11th hour to prevent them sleazing their way back up. Being owned by Al Mirage, along with the shady "loans" purported to have been made to him, not to mention the unlicensed agents and the charges against Storrie-teller and co., should be worth -50 points at least, I'd have thought.

... or received a nicely padded brown envelope or two?

I'm not sure how common a name "Ali Al Faraj" is in the Middle East, but if it's not that common you would've thought they'd have chosen the Arabic equivalent of "John Smith". "Mohammad Haddad" maybe?

Yes, but he could be lying. Shocking as it may sound, one or two characters from Cheats FC have been rumoured to have done so. He wouldn't be funding Lawrence and co.'s wages if he weren't going for the big prize. The remaining parachute payments (along with stripping everything bare) is the consolation prize if the gamble fails, and even in that scenario I reckon he'll come out ahead.

But apart from that, everything is fine and dandy in Cheatsville.