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“Clubs need to live within their means”
A bad week for British football has seen both Glasgow Rangers and Portsmouth go into administration, Pompey for the second time in three seasons. Here, the Life’s A Pitch team looks at the reasons why this has happened, who is to blame, and what can be done to stop it happening.
“A club the size of Glasgow Rangers going into administration sends out a statement,” explains the Guardian’s Dominic Fifield. “It questions the validity of the Old Firm dominance in Scotland. And Celtic fans will quite legitimately turn around and say, ‘Hold on, could they afford the success they’ve had at our expense in recent years?’”
And with Portsmouth going into administration as well this week, the Sunday Telegraph’s Duncan White believes the time has come for both Scottish and English clubs to be more financially transparent. “These aren’t just businesses that can expire, these are important parts of our communities and they can’t be allowed to be vulnerable because people are trying to shave some money off paying tax, through offshore schemes and so forth,” he says. “In these times, I don’t have much sympathy for the football clubs. If they’re using creative accounting to avoid paying tax, that the rest of us pay, that’s no good. Clubs need to live within their means and it has to be more transparent.”
Dom goes further in his criticism of clubs that fall foul of the financial pitfalls. “I support a club that’s been in administration twice,” he explains of Crystal Palace. “And you’re embarrassed because you know effectively that your club has been cheating. That is the bottom line, that they’ve been paying players’ wages that they couldn’t afford. The actual victims, apart from the supporters who wake up each morning wondering whether their club is going to survive, are the staff that are going to lose their jobs. There are 177 members of staff at Rangers and the majority of them will be worried about whether they’re going to be employed next week.”
Former footballer and journalist Adrian Clarke believes the authorities need to tighten up to prevent a repeat of the problems Portsmouth are experiencing. “I feel sorry for the players at Portsmouth and the new manager Michael Appleton, who’s come in and done a pretty good job,” he says. “And the staff at the club have done a good job of making cutbacks to get the club back on an even keel. It’s tragic really that they’ve found themselves at the hands of another rogue owner. The rules have got to change. The Football League, the authorities have got to be much, much tighter or else we’re just going to see this repeat itself, again and again.”
Watch the full video discussion by clicking on the image play button above.
Related articles:
Mike Calvin: It’s hard to feel sorry for Portsmouth’s plight
Mike Calvin: Time Portsmouth fans took action after latest crisis
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