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Portsmouth face court after new taxman challenge

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Portsmouth must return to the High Court on Tuesday after Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs challenged their voluntary administration.

Andrew Andronikou, the administrator in charge of the stricken club, was informed of the latest development on Monday. Despite uncertainty over the nature of HMRC's objection, Andronikou is confident Portsmouth will continue down the route of administration as planned.

"We're having to go to court to show that the debenture is valid," he said. "I don't understand the exact reason why this is, we're just following normal protocol. We're not unduly worried.

"It's not standard procedure but I'd imagine that HMRC are basically crossing their Is and dotting their Ts. We're expecting the administration to proceed as it was."

Meanwhile, the Premier League is set to dock Portsmouth nine points on Tuesday despite Andronikou believing there could be some sort of legal appeal. Andronikou, a partner at the accountancy firm UHY Hacker Young, held a press conference on Friday and announced that he thought he had a faint chance of contesting the points penalty for going into administration.

"The assumption that there is an automatic deduction of points has never been tested before but we will do our very best to avoid a deduction," Andronikou said. "Our solicitors believe there may be a slight opportunity but I don't want to say anything more because that prejudices my position in achieving it. I would say everyone has taken for granted that there will be a deduction of nine points."

However, Soccernet does not believe that the Premier League would waive the nine-point deduction, and as yet, no one has indicated how or why that they should make an exception, even though Pompey would be the first to suffer such a fate and would be effectively relegated as a consequence of being so far adrift at the foot of the table.

Neither of those facts would convince the Premier League to 'bend' their own rules, and the member clubs would object if they did.

The Premier League issued a statement as soon as Pompey went into administration to make its position clear: "The Premier League can confirm it has received notice from Portsmouth FC that it has suffered an event of insolvency and entered administration. The board will now convene to invoke its rules and policy in relation to this matter."

The Premier League would stress it is holding a meeting to "invoke its rules", and that means the nine points will be stripped from Pompey on Tuesday.

The statement added: "The board will also meet the administrator at the earliest opportunity to receive their views on the financial status of Portsmouth FC and set out the conditions for the club to fulfil its commitments for the remainder of the season.

"We understand the need to act as swiftly and transparently as possible. However, there is a process which means we can only provide comment at the appropriate junctures."

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