Avoiding the Drop

Imagine a league where this guy never existed.

Portsmouth is, currently, living on borrowed time. Described as “insolvent” by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs department, they’ve got until next Wednesday at 4:30 PM GMT to prove that they can pay their £11.5 million tax bill; failure to do so will result in liquidation.

Liquidation, it should be noted, is different from administration in the same way Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 bankruptcies in the U.S. are different from each other. Under a Chapter 13 (administration), you retain your assets and work out a payment schedule with your creditors; under Chapter 7 (liquidation), all of your assets are forfeit. So at the moment, Portsmouth is about a week away from not existing anymore.

That would be absolutely gutting for Portsmouth fans, who would lose their club’s history only a few seasons after gaining promotion and winning the FA Cup. But Portsmouth fans aren’t the only ones who would get the shaft; let’s talk about who else would get sucked down with them were that to happen.

See, here’s the thing: according to today’s Mirror Football article, if Portsmouth ceases to exist the Premier League all of a sudden becomes a 19 team league. That means that results from matches against Portsmouth would no longer count towards a team’s point total, which seriously screws up some clubs at the bottom of the table.

Clubs like, say, West Ham. Right now, the Hammers are sitting in 18th place with 21 points from 24 matches. They’re in the drop zone as we speak, but they’ve also got a game in hand over Burnley and Hull City, who are both within three points of them. Relegation is a fear, but a good finish should keep them up.

However, were Portsmouth to be liquidated, the two matches that West Ham played against them would cease to exist. So the four points they earned from those fixtures would be wiped out; that drops them to 17 points out of 22 matches, and (more importantly) into 19th place, with four points separating them from 17th placed Bolton and safety (it’s probable that only the bottom two teams would be relegated should this occur).

Why do they fall behind Wolves, who are currently in 19th place? That’s because Wolves actually don’t lose any points if Portsmouth leaves because Wolves didn’t gain any points off of Portsmouth this season. They’re one of four teams that would, strangely, benefit from Portsmouth’s disapperance; if you lost to Portsmouth, the teams around you would drop points while you stayed where you were. The other three teams: Wigan, Burnley, and Liverpool.

Liverpool would stand to benefit the most should this happen. See, Liverpool managed to be the only top-four team to outright lose to Portsmouth; meanwhile, Arsenal and Manchester United have beaten Pompey twice. So Arsenal and United would “lose” six points of matches that never existed, while Liverpool would stay at 44. That ultimately would actually put Liverpool squarely in third place, with a one point lead over Arsenal. It would also strip Man City of six points, a serious dent in their challenge for fourth (the full table is on the Mirror Football link above, if you’re interested).

That being said: this is now not even particularly funny to me. We’re way past that, in fact. It’s really just sad, and everyone involved with the club should be ashamed of themselves. Alexandre Gaydamak, Sulaiman al-Fahim, and whoever the hell the next two owners are (I stopped memorizing weird spellings for guys who aren’t going to hang around) have completely abused this club. Peter Storrie seems to be trying to help, but he also seems to love to remind everyone how none of this is his fault more than he loves actually fixing the problem. Even Harry Redknapp, who tends to leave clubs with rather high wage bills, shares some blame. The fans of this club deserve better than this entire lot has given them, and full credit to the players: they haven’t quit. Some of their matches, in fact, have actually seen them put in pretty good shifts, in spite of the eventual loss.

I don’t know what the situation is, but the Premier League needs to adopt a policy relating to the ownership and investment of clubs if they want to keep their fans – their PAYING fans, whom every club relies on more than they sometimes realize – around. Because fans can’t come to matches if their clubs don’t exist.