The Football Association is set to hold onto fees, which will keep Portsmouth from going a long way to paying off their creditors.

Portsmouth have accumulated prize money from playing in the domestic cup competition and face a reunion with former boss, Harry Redknapp, in the semi finals.

They will not be getting the money because the FA does not see it as fair to Portsmouth’s rivals, when the club owes over £3 million in unpaid fees to other clubs for a number of players that have changed hands.

There does not seem to be a single bit of good news on the horizon for the south coast club and this will just add to the woe. After going into administration the club are now fighting off the possibility of being dissolved from all angles.

Club veteran, Hermann Hreidarsson, said: “It’s been negative vibes, doom and gloom all season. But when you go over the white line, you like to think you can focus only on playing football. We’ve done that in our last few games.”

“Getting to Wembley with everything that has been going on is a greater achievement than getting there two years ago. Possibly there’s the same vibe this time that we are going to win the Cup. When we were in the semi-finals last time, it was ours to lose. Now it’s ours to win.”

Things could change for Pompey very quickly if they can get their act together and remember that they are still in a highly rated domestic competition.

The club could become the first in history to have points deducted, be relegated and qualify for Europe all in the same year. However, the chance of this seems remote when you think about some of the quality still left in the FA Cup.

Pompey fans will probably be hoping that in a strange way the club does not qualify for European football next season. This is because it would put the club right into the spot light all over again.

This would come at a key time, when the club needs to be consolidating in a financial area. This will mean selling players during the summer if they still exist. This would leave the squad thin and the calibre of some European teams would be too strong for Pompey to over come.

They won the FA Cup in 2008 and it would be fantastic if the current playing side could pull together and give the loyal fans something to shout about as they have been suffering all season long.

Stranger things have happened in football and there would probably be a few Pompey fans with smiles on faces and sighs of disbelief at what a roller coaster ride there season has become.

Avram Grant still has his work cut out and the club remains in danger. However, it’s probably only this club that could keep emotions and expectations high at such a terrible stage.

A Martin O’Neill half time blasting was enough to help Aston Villa come through a potentially tricky FA Cup tie against Reading.

Villa scored four times in the second half after they conceded a 2-0 lead to Reading yesterday. A number of players have said it is the angriest they have ever seen the manager and it seems his strong words did just the trick.

Villa did not get off to the start they would have been hoping for and took far too long to get into the game. It was clear that maybe the players had an eye on other things but total loyalty is something the Villa boss demands.

Striker, John Carew, said: “We were struggling in the first half and the gaffer told us some serious words at the break. I won’t go into what he said but you can see on the pitch what happened. After last week we are more determined. Now we know what Wembley’s all about, we really want to get to a final again. Of course, the experience was not good for us, but we have a big chance to get back there.”

Midfield player, Ashley Young, added: “There were a few tough words at half-time. Our first-half performance wasn’t as good as it could have been and he [O’Neill] told us that.”

“We knew we had a job to do in the second half and I think, if you look at it, we were brilliant. It showed the character and team spirit we’ve got. We said we had to start brightly, get an early goal and get them on the back foot and we did that. Then John was sensational.”

The result looks very fitting when you take into equation how well Villa have been playing this year. There is the strong chance they will make it to another domestic cup final and the shout of a Champions League place is not fading away either.

O’Neill is a very smart manager and there can be no doubt that he would not have gone off at his players if he did not feel as though it was worth it. Sometimes it takes players a little time to get into games.

Once Aston Villa started playing with a lot of the class they are capable of. There was no question that they would get a result. Reading could not cope with the pace and movement, which Villa have in abundance.

O’Neill himself said: “The players are very fine players and I don’t think it was necessary to say anything. They know how second best they were in the first half and didn’t need reminding of that. Reading played very well and I was quite pleased we went in just 2-0 behind. The team performance in the second half was terrific.”

It was obviously a case of the under dogs trying to come out so quickly that they just could not keep up the pace, which may have been the thing that kept Villa at bay throughout the whole match.

Portsmouth have become the first Premier League side in history to go into administration.

The news broke this morning that the current owner, Balram Chainrai, had been unable to find another investor for the club and Pompey now face the certainty of relegation.

Portsmouth have been a club in financial trouble for a long time and the hard work of many people trying to keep the club above water has proved fruitless. This news will no doubt dent the immediate future of the club greatly and they could well face successive relegations into the lower leagues.

Chainrai’s spokesperson said: “He hasn’t made a penny out of the club. He was asked in October to put in £17million as a loan, for six weeks, and he agreed to do that.”

“At the end of six weeks he expected his money to be returned and that didn’t happen. He gave them a bit of a grace period but the loan wasn’t repaid so in January he took over the shares of the club.”

“The club’s debt is too great. He (Chainrai) was also given false promises when he came in. He was told the club had certain debts but didn’t know that Premier League rules say football debts become a priority, that money owed on transfers must be paid first.”

“He asked the questions and was given answers and assurances that turned out not to be true. Having put £17million of his own money in unfortunately he found the club facing a winding-up order on Monday.”

“He had a choice of allowing the club to go into administration, for someone to go in and try to bring it back into a stronger financial position. He feels he’s a victim – the club have been overwhelmed by these debts and he is a reluctant owner.”

It is difficult to see what the next move for Portsmouth is. They will no doubt be stripped of all valuable assets, which will leave the club with a first team that would struggle to compete in a league like the Championship.

The other factor to consider is whether the club can still be run as a business. If it is decided that they cannot then the club could end up being dissolved, which would cause the Premier League a huge headache in deciding the best way to share out valuable points.

Portsmouth fans deserve some credit for sticking with their side through thick and thin. No doubt this news will have eradicated the recent memory of an FA Cup win over local rivals, Southampton.

All the fans ever asked for was transparency and they have finally got it in the worst possible form. The next move is vital and the fans will have to stay strong, even though they may feel like throwing in the towel.

The spokesman added: “He’s been left holding the baby but he wants to do what’s right… he feels this is the right solution. Buying a business with a huge debt around its neck is not an attractive proposition – but there are parties who say they are interested. Some of them may be interested if they are on a stronger financial footing.”

Tottenham, Stoke, Reading and Aston Villa each secured their passage to the FA Cup quarter final on Wednesday night after Wednesday night’s fifth-round replays.

On a night when all eyes were on Europe’s premier club competition the UEFA Champions League, there were four fifth-round ties to be settled in England’s premier cup competition.

Tottenham 4 Bolton 0

Bolton paid the price for not finishing off the job in the first meeting between these side as they were demolished 4-0 by a rampant Tottenham Hotspur.

The sides drew 1-1 in the Reebok Stadium first time out, but Harry Redknapp’s face proved too strong at White Hart Lane with in-form striker Roman Pavlyuchenko continued his new found confidence with his second brace in consecutive games.

The Russian opened the scoring after 23 minutes and, with a pair of own goals courtesy of Jussi Jaaskalainen (35) and Andy O’Brien (47) sandwiched in between, he rounded of the night with his second three minutes from full time.

Tottenham’s next task in the cup is to overcome Roy Hodgson’s Fulham, but they’ll have to do so at Craven Cottage.

Stoke City 3 Man City 1 (AET)

At the Britannia, meanwhile, Stoke and Man City met for the third time in twelve days and for the third time the pair were deadlocked at 1-1 after 90 minutes. It took until the 79th minute for the opener through Dave Kitson, only for Craig Bellamy to grab an instant reply two minutes later.

Emmanuel Adebayor then received his marching orders for an apparent shove on Ryan Shawcross and with the full time whistle sounding soon after, extra time was required to decide the tie. Stoke took full advantage of the extra man in the extra 30 minutes, as first Shawcross headed the Potters into the lead on 95 minutes before Tuncay Sanli put the game beyond doubt four minutes later.

Stoke’s reward is a trip to Stamford Bridge where they will face holders, and tournament favourites, Chelsea.

Aston Villa 3 Crystal Palace 1

There were penalties galore at Villa Park as Crystal Palace’s cup run came to an end as they went down 3-1 to Aston Villa. The home side took the lead shortly before half-time through Gabby Agbonlahor’s well taken header.

In-form Palace midfielder Darren Ambrose got his 17th goal of the season from the spot on 73 minutes as the Londoners looked to be taking their Premier League opponents into extra time but it wasn’t to be as two more penalties spoiled their night.

Mathew Lawrence was the guilty player as he brought down John Carew inside the area and the big Norwegian picked himself up and scored from the resulting penalty to send Villa on their to the quarters.

There was still time for another penalty, however, as Lawrence once again brought down the Villa striker for a second time and for a second time Carew rose to his feet to find the back of the net.

Villa will now travel to Reading, who also won on Wednesday night, for their quarter final tie.

West Brom 2 Reading 3 (AET)

Elsewhere, Reading’s remarkable FA Cup run continued as they once again dumped out higher ranked opposition, this time West Brom were the victims in a 3-2 defeat at the Hawthorns.

Robert Koran gave the Baggies an early lead before Jimmy Kebe levelled for Reading just three minutes later. Koran restored the lead for West Brom, who are riding high in the Championship as opposed to Reading’s relegation fight in the same division, but they were be denied by a late equaliser.

That came via the right foot of Brian Howard, sending the away section in the Hawthorns Stadium wild. Extra-time beckoned and a deflated Baggies side struggled in the extra half hour with Gylfi Sigurdsson grabbing his tenth of the season with an emphatic long range drive to seal progression.

Liverpool star player, Xabi Alonso, has showed off his adequate intelligence by saying that the reason so many high calibre players are leaving the Premier League is because of the poor value of the pound. Alonso thinks that a lot of players in football are motivated by money and due to the failing fortunes of British currency, many players are looking to jump ship and get a move to another country.

Alonso himself had been heavily linked with a move to Real Madrid, a deal that could still happen at some point. However, with the Javier Mascherano transfer to Barcelona nearly complete, Liverpool could be forced to hold onto their best midfield player besides Steven Gerrard.

Alonso has all of the attributes needed to become a Liverpool legend and he often scores spectacular goals, most notably the FA Cup effort he put in against Luton Town, when he scored from his own half. You cannot replace players with such talent so easily and if Alonso stays it is nice to know that he will be staying for all of the right reasons and not to do with money.

The Spaniard said: “We’re not stupid. We keep an eye on these things. When you see your contract down by 30 per cent, then you cannot be happy. The weakness of the sterling is not helping the Premier League because those competing have to fight against the European teams. Hopefully over the next few months and years it will get back to what it was not so long ago. But I cannot do anything – it must be Gordon Brown.”

The worrying thing for supporters of Premier League clubs is the fact that Alonso is probably right. A lot of players are fickle enough to just do as they are told by their agents and if they listen to a lot of people telling them that the English economy is no good for them or their aspirations then they will listen to it and promptly move on.

It is sad that this is the way football can be but it is a blinding reality that we all have to face up to. It is just good to know that players such as Alonso can recongise the signs themselves early on and actually respect the situation and the club they are playing for instead of throwing the toys out of the pram like some spoilt little child who always wants the best.

However, a lot of players should remember that even thought the pound has dropped in value, it is still the strongest currency currently in Europe. Therefore moving abroad for financial incentives would not appear to be a well thought out decision. The economy in Britain will not stay the way it is at the moment forever and there will come a point when those that have stayed will be rewarded through riches far greater than they could get in any other part of the world. It is something that a lot of players probably take for granted, but it’s positive to see a professional who is completely aware of what’s going on and isn’t panicking.

English and Scottish football clubs are set to miss out on millions of pounds in income due to the failings of digital broadcaster, Setanta. Setanta have lost all television rights to show top-flight matches in England and Scotland next season as the ailing company could not find a buyer to come in with a last minute rescue attempt.

Setanta were set a deadline on which they had to pay the Premier League £10 million. The failure of the company to do so means that the Premier League and other governing bodies have been forced to cancel contracts, which has put Setanta on the brink of completely collapsing.

It is currently unknown who is likely to receive the contracts that Setanta held, which include the rights to show 46 Premier League games next season as well as some FA Cup matches, SPL matches and England home friendlies. The games will most likely go to the highest bidder, which could mean that Sky Sports end up with all rights to show live football next season.

This is something that rival broadcasters had not wanted as they feared it would encourage even more monopolisation on the part of Bskyb and would take a lot of games away from an audience that could not access them. However, there may be a chance for an English domestic channel to get in on the act. ITV or the BBC could prepare a package to try and buy some rights but the financial leverage that they have probably won’t be any where near the power that Sky can hold.




FA Chief Executive, Ian Whatmore, said: “We are very disappointed with the news. We await developments, but remain confident of the attractiveness of our broadcast rights going forward.”

However the problem is that there is currently a limit on the number of extra games that Sky is allowed to show and given the financial inadequcies of some domestic channels, it could mean that an alien foreign broadcaster picks up the rights. This will cause outrage in the same way that Setanta did because a lot of fans cannot understand how a channel that hardly anyone subscribes to can be allowed to show such important and mainstream sport.

Television income is one of the main inflows of money for a lot of football clubs. They base a lot of their players’ contracts around this money as well as taking gambles in the transfer market based on the money that they are likely to receive. It is doubtful that the collpase of Setanta will have a monumental effect on clubs but it will mean that the transfer market remains a little quieter than it normally would do at this time of year.

Furthermore, given the money that some top clubs are spending at the moment it means a double blow in the respect that clubs relying on TV cash will now be even further behind these financial giants and the ground will only be covered after the horse has well and truly bolted.

The clock on the upper tier reads 2.59pm. Just one minute to kickoff. There’s the usual strong stench of dodgy meat coming from the hot dog stand and the usual alcohol fuelled irritants a tier above. Outside the ground, ticket touts haven’t even bothered showing up for their trade, but then this is no usual 3 o’clock kickoff.

I bring myself to look beyond the food stall and the drunken, tattooed mouthpieces who seem to be unavoidable at professional football matches these days. I scan my eyes across the appropriately named ‘Fantastic Media’ lower tier and the number of young fresh-faced Huddersfield Town fans is, well…fantastic.

This season, Huddersfield Town F.C. broke financial barriers by charging just £2 entrance to the Galpharm Stadium to see their Football League One clash with Carlisle United. Their motivation? To attract the next generation of Terriers’ fans before they become seduced by the glamour of the Premier League.

Of course there’s no guarantee that the legion of youngsters watching this game won’t in time turn out like the yobs sitting above them, but with few companies’ futures secure in the current economic climate, they may well keep their club running.

The Credit Crunch is seemingly taking over the average person’s life. Costs are being cut in every department, especially hobbies, and supporting your football team can often be the most expensive hobby of all.

Financial struggles within the UK are one of the main causes of falling attendance figures in football, and nowhere more so than in the north of England. With the exception of Manchester United and Liverpool, northern clubs at all levels are finding it difficult to fill their stadiums.

But it is the not-so glamorous clubs in the Football League who depend heavily on the people within their working-class local communities to attend their games. This has prompted clubs from the Yorkshire region to act, and it was Bradford City who initiated a growing trend.

The club was the subject of acclaim in 2007 when they announced that season tickets for the following season would be available from as little as £100, working out at less than £4.50 per league game. The offer increased attendances by 57.1% by the end of the 2007/08 season and breathed new life into the club following their slide down the Football League.

With an average figure of 13,659, Bradford had by far the highest attendance in League Two last season. The move was such a success that Bantam fans were awarded a further price cut when it was announced that 2009/10 season tickets were available from £99.

Perhaps even more significant is the breakthrough effect Bradford’s success has had on other Yorkshire clubs. Huddersfield, whose average attendance last season was down by 11.2% on the previous year, has rocketed to an average of almost 13,400 in 08/09 after their copycat impression of Bradford’s pricing strategy.

The club, prior to their equally impressive £2 match-day ticket offer, offered fans season ticket prices as low as £99 last summer in celebration of their centenary year.

“It almost doubled the season ticket sales to 16,200 compared to around 8,500 last season. At that price it made sense for anyone to get a ticket, as they would only have to attend 5 of the 23 games to break even,” said Marcus Middleton, Chairman of the Huddersfield Town Supporters’ Association. “It has definitely reignited the passion in many Town fans,” he added.

Despite their creditable price structure, Huddersfield Town have not reflected the same success on the pitch, with the team finishing League One mid-table at the end of a mediocre season. Marcus was keen to point out that although cheap tickets are welcomed by the fans it casts question marks over the club’s ability to afford investment into the team. “Huddersfield, and all clubs, will have to seriously look at finding a happy medium when considering their pricing structure.

“They need to balance out the fact that season tickets of £100 cannot maintain a successful team, but they need to find a price that the majority of this season’s large crowds will accept paying. I have every faith that they will,” he said.

“Town will aim to maintain this season’s average attendance whilst increasing the ticketing prices to enable the club to spend that little bit extra to buy that extra bit of quality that is needed to see the club maintain a promotion push next season.”

So perhaps cheap season ticket offers every season isn’t an option, but they haven’t done these clubs’ fan bases any harm. Of course, the main concern about non-attendees is the possibility of losing the current generation of fans, and missing out on the next. The general belief is that if parents cannot afford to take their children to games, kids will develop support for the teams they see regularly on television in the glorified Premier League and Champions League.

This ‘armchair following’ is evident in any high street in the UK. Seeing children wearing Chelsea or Manchester United shirts in the centre of Leeds, Bradford and Sheffield is unfortunately commonplace these days. Another Yorkshire club who deserve recognition for trying to prevent the ‘armchair following’ is Barnsley. After a glorious run to the FA Cup semi-finals last year, fans have been brought back down to earth with a relegation battle in this season’s Championship table.

Poor form has inevitably led to disappointing attendances. But, galvanized by the success of the other clubs, Barnsley offered match day tickets to their vital relegation clash with Nottingham Forest for just £5 during the past season. Paul Waddington of the Barnsley Supporters Trust, was able to give more insight into the offer. “The game wasn’t originally due to be one with reduced ticket pricing,” he said. “But the Forest Chairman made a promise to their supporters who had attended a recent away fixture at Burnley where they were duly thrashed, that he would subsidise the tickets to Barnsley, effectively reducing them to £10.

“Both clubs clearly wanted to swell their support due to the importance of the fixture. Barnsley therefore reduced the prices to £5 for all home fans and this saw practically a full house. “I don’t think we could sustain a club pricing all fixtures at £5 though, but it certainly brought the floating fan back to the club and, more importantly, brought the game within the affordability bracket for people out of work, et cetera,” he added. Bringing ‘the floating fan’ back seems to be a priority amongst Yorkshire clubs at present but while it appears unfeasible to run a football club with budget season ticket prices year upon year, it does appear that these clubs are onto a winner with casual match day offers. If more clubs in other regions of the nation were willing to echo such promotional offers, perhaps the influx of ‘armchair’ fans in the English game would not be so much of an issue.

Upon leaving the Galpharm stadium, where veteran Andy Booth’s late header sealed a home win, I’m intrigued by the lure of that dodgy hot-dog stand. The traditional pie at football matches has long since been replaced with the imitation frankfurter between two stale buns, but for £3…it hardly represents value for money. For just £2, this will surely be the least expensive game of professional football I will ever witness. Here’s hoping for more match days when entrance is cheaper than the hotdogs, because for football clubs, capturing the next generation of football fans is priceless.