By David Gold
August 15 – English League One side Portsmouth are on the brink of liquidation after Balram Chainrai withdrew a bid to takeover the cash strapped team.
The club have been in dire financial straits since their last season in the Premier League in 2009-2010, when they went into administration.
They have gone through several owners since, and were relegated to League One last season after being given a ten-point penalty for going into administration again.
Portsmouth will also start the new season in England’s third tier with another ten-point penalty.
This summer they have been engaged in frantic efforts to remove all contracted players from their books to ensure their survival for another season.
The last of those players, Liam Lawrence, left last week, which seemed to have secured their future for the short term.
Instead, they have been forced to look for players on a non-contract basis, such as the acquisition of goalkeeper Simon Eastwood, and others from the youth team.
All of that work now seems to be in vain after Chainrai (pictured above) sent a statement to Sky Sports News which read: “Portpin Ltd regrets to announce that it is withdrawing its bid for Portsmouth Football Club.
“Unfortunately, our efforts to save the club once more from extinction have hit a wall of rejection and lacking cooperation from the administrator and other interested parties.
“We are not the ones who have caused the club to collapse and we are not the ones to choose PKF as administrators.
“As history has recorded, we sold the club over a year ago after saving it from liquidation and unfortunately found ourselves again fighting to try and save the club from another liquidation.
“Through this administration process over the last six months we have always had the club’s best interest in mind – unlike many parties who were involved in the process.
“We repeatedly encouraged the administrator to find a new, willing and able buyer to take over the club – unfortunately he was unsuccessful in this job and couldn’t find a buyer despite his promises.
“Later he approached us to be his safety net to save the club as he couldn’t find a buyer.
“We agreed in the effort to avoid liquidation of the club.
“We welcome and will assist anyone, including the supporters trust to try and save the club in the coming days.”
The statement goes on to criticise fans for not supporting the takeover, as well as administrators and former players such as Nwankwo Kanu for making creditor claims against Portsmouth.
Chainrai added that the final straw had been comments by manager Michael Appleton (pictured above) made yesterday that the team were certain to be relegated to League Two.
“All of these facts have left us in a position that we no longer want to fight this battle, we have zero support to save the club therefore we formally withdraw our bid and our honest attempt at saving the club,” Chainrai said.
“We will sleep well knowing we did our utmost to save the club.
“We welcome and will assist anyone, including the supporters trust to try and save the club in the coming days.”
Portsmouth lost 3-0 to Plymouth in the Capital One Cup last night, in a match in which nine teenagers and first team coach Ashley Westwood took to the field.
Liquidation would mean the club finally being wound up and forced to start life again at the bottom of the English football pyramid, through which it can take several years to climb back into the Football League.
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