Pompey the poor

My grandfather, who worked in the dockyards, was a regular at Fratton Park, Portsmouth’s football ground. I wish I could say, like the moist eyed Tony Blair, that he had taken me to see some of the football greats at Pompey, but in fact none of them were playing there and he didn’t want a child accompanying him to a man’s event. As a result football is rather a closed book to me; except for the financing, which is a piece of continuing fascination.

Portsmouth has gone into administration today and I think history will say that its demise is a piece of singular incompetence. Yet the news showed bewildered fans wandering around saying that football seemed to be more a matter of money than social cohesion. Indeedy doody. The money men are in, and the social cohesion chaps are talking on local radio.

One morning in Borneo, watching the sun rise over the Kuching river (one of the world’s ‘must sees’ by the way) I had myself rowed out to an island in the middle of the stream. Alighting from the boat the first thing I saw was a Manchester United merchandising trolley for selling T-shirts and caps and so on. The Manchester United brand is strong internationally. No one on that island, or in the whole of Kuching, would have heard of Portsmouth.

When Manchester United was being bought there were demonstrations saying ‘Man Utd is not for sale’, which of course it was, being quoted on the stockmarket. But all the supporters clubbing together could have bought it, outbidding the Glazer family, and we would have had a sort of co-operative. I am certain that this is the solution for Pompey.

The BBC tried to explain football’s financing problem in terms of debt (and football clubs have a lot) in relation to assets. This is meaningless. The important ratio is debt to cashflow. The Americans who bought Manchester United and filled it with debt did it on the basis that all these Indonesians, Chinese and Japanese are buying Manchester United shirts. The cashflow is strong and they borrowed against it. A similar cachet exists with Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur. Not with Manchester City (is that the second team?), Aston Villa, or, of course Portsmouth.

Football suddenly became a billion pound industry without getting billion pound managers to run it. It is the same set of self satisfied uneducated working class slobs who manage the Football Association as did 50 years ago. The twenty top teams get far too much money and the remainder get far too little. Football cannot expect its outdated business plan to be rescued by billionaires. It happens from time to time but there really aren’t enough.

The only answer is for the fans to own the teams. That is what should have happened with Manchester Utd, but it seemed too much money. It could certainly happen with Portsmouth, which can’t now be worth very much, and would transform the whole industry. Why not pay the players’ bonuses with shares, as happens in the City? Start training youngsters instead of buying expensive players from abroad? Pay the manager and his staff on a purely performance basis?

Football is in crisis. It needs some new thinking. More than anything else it needs some leaders who are open to new thinking. Don't hold your breath, though.