Fly Me Over the Pond: Pay Up Pompey, the Plight of Portsmouth FC

So Portsmouth come to town this weekend, and it allows Middlesbrough fans to be grateful for the leadership of Steve Gibson.  Portsmouth are a financial wreck, and the national reaction to it appears to be rather strange.

A national outcry of pity for poor old Pompey swept through the media, and even campaigns started to have Premier League giants give some of their money to poor old Portsmouth.  The question is...why?

Portsmouth are in financial trouble because they deserve to be there. They are a poorly-run club and to have other clubs bail them out would simply be rewarding failure.  Portsmouth won the FA Cup in 2008 and the fans we are supposed to pity doubtless had the time of their lives. 

The 2008 season included a success and joy that many fans will never experience, yet we are supposed to pity them now that they blew their budget doing so?

In 2010 the club wants handouts to survive, yet in 2008 they were paying salaries to Harry Redknapp, David James, Glen Johnson, Sol Campbell, Nwankwo Kanu, and Milan Baros.  Reports even surfaced of average forward John Utaka receiving 80 grand a week!

So the question is why would a club carry such a wage bill?  Because they wanted to win football games and they got it.  In fact, in FA Cup victory they achieved a significant success that will be ingrained in the club's history.  Not only that, but Portsmouth fans were gifted lifelong memories that few fans of their hometown club ever experience (big club bandwagon jumpers excluded).

Think back to the Boro League Cup win in 2004. It was likely one of a Boro fan's happiest days in both their sporting and personal lives.  Now let’s be honest, the FA Cup is a little bit more special than the Carling Cup.  So let’s congratulate Portsmouth on that success, but now the bill has arrived, and there is no need to feel any sympathy.

If Portsmouth had done things right financially then they would not have won the FA Cup.  They would have sold expensive big-name stars to balance the books behind the scenes.  Stars like James, Campbell, Kanu, and Utaka would have headed for the exit door and been replaced by young, cheaper alternatives.  Does that sound familiar?

For Campbell read Woodgate, for Kanu read Hasselbaink, and for Utaka read Yakubu.  Boro could have kept those players and ignored the consequences, but they did not.  Steve Gibson bit the bullet and brought in a cheaper squad to secure the long-term future of the club.

Gibson made bold business decisions and results suffered. He was then faced with fierce criticism.  Not many people felt sorry for Boro when we were relegated even though the finances were a large reason.  Portsmouth on the other hand ran their club worse than Gibson, spent their way to glory, and when it all crashed became a source of national charity and sympathy. 

You should find no sympathy for Pompey at the Riverside Stadium.  They did not have their gates locked in 1986 and have players going unpaid yet winning the league, they were not relegated due to a point deduction, and they have not run their finances as well as Middlesbrough.  Yet somehow it is Middlesbrough in the better position.  For that, we should be grateful to Steve Gibson, one of our own.