Who is a Fit and Proper Person - Take Two

Portsmouth have faced more challenges than most clubs in recent years and now they have to deal with a new set of problems.   In June the club was taken over by Convers Sports Initiatives which is backed by Russian owner Vladimir Antonov.

At the end of November Antonov, and his business partner Raimondos Baranauskas were bailed until 16 December by Westminster Magistrates Court . They were arrested at their offices in the City of London after the issue of a European Arrest Warrant.

They face an extradition request by the Lithuanian authorities in connection with alleged fraud and asset stripping at a Lithuanian bank. Should they be convicted, the Lithuanian court could impose sentences of up to ten years' imprisonment.

Mr Antonov was ordered to pay a surety of £75,000, surrender his passport and live and sleep at his London home where he lives with his wife and two young children. He also has to report to nearby Notting Hill police station three times a week.

The club's parent company Convers Sports Initiatives (CSI) subsequently went into administration, leading to the resignation of Vladimir Antonov as Portsmouth chairman. Whether this will lead to a points deduction depends in part on whether some of the club debt has been transferred to CSI.

Former owner Balram Chainrai (who may well up rescuing the club) instructed law firm Walker Morris to initiate the administration process after he failed to receive interest payments scheduled as part of Antonov's takeover of Portsmouth.  Chainrai is owed £17m for that deal.  He felt confident about making the loan because Lithuanian bank Snoras had guaranteed the debt. Antonov owned 68 per cent of the bank.

From my own knowledge of Lithuania I would not have been so confident.   In any event Snoras was nationalized after regulators discovered a huge shortfall in assets.

The adequacy of the fit and proper person test has been a long running problem in football. When a club is in trouble and an apparent savior who can show he has some money comes along it is perhaps not surprising that neither the club nor the football authorities want to probe too deeply.

In the case of Pompey Vladimir Antonov has spent some money. He has paid out £10.5m on transfer fees and wages and was servicing the club's old creditors who were being paid back 20p in the pound over a five year period. Quite what will happen about their money remains to be seen.

It must be emphasized that Antonov has no criminal convictions and has never been insolvent, thus meeting two key criteria.  However, the financial regulatory authorities did have some concerns about aspects of his activities and one wouldn't have had to dig too deep to discover that.

In 2007 the Financial Services Authority refused Antonov permission to open a bank in England because of concerns about his willingness to cooperate with the regulatory body. In January 2010 an attempt by the Antonov-owned company Spyker Cars to buy Saab from GM was held up and only approved when Antonov sold his majority shareholding.  The Swedish security police had found what they believed to be connections between the family of Antonov and organized crime, including money laundering.

The Football League argue they haven't got the time to pursue such matters, but perhaps they ought to devote more resources to it. With the number of unemployed graduates around, it wouldn't cost that much.

Indeed, all the relevant information is on the internet. Of course, one can't believe everything that is on the internet, even Wikipedia. There is a lot of false information, speculation and half truths out there.  But the amount of information about Antonov should have rung some alarm bells and prompted a more detailed investigation.

Given that the Football League does not come out of this very well, it would be particularly harsh to deduct points from Portsmouth, not that they have any football debts that I am aware of anyway.

In the Coalition Agreement , the Government said that it favored the wider use of mutual forms of ownership for football clubs. I am not convinced they are a panacea for debt problems.  Barcelona has managed to run up massive debts and club presidents elected by the fans are under tremendous pressure to spend to ensure success.

Having said that, the formula seems to have worked at non-league level and a number of new legal forms are available (on which I gave a presentation some time ago to the strategy group of my own non-league club). If there was ever an opportunity to see if mutual ownership could work with a major club, Portsmouth would seem to offer a good case.  Of course, one of the challenges would be to find funding, although other fans will often come to the aid of fans in difficulty.

After a succession of owners what the club badly needs is some stability so that fans can focus on the action on the pitch rather than off it.

Some Portsmouth fans come over on the ferry from the Isle of Wight.   Island football presents many challenges, particularly for remoter islands. The Isles of Scilly league has just two teams which play each other every week in league and cup competitions. The Isle of Man has staged a tournament involving mainland football clubs before the start of the season. The Isle of Wight has good enough connections with the mainland to have teams competing in the non-league system.

The Channel Islands present special challenges. They are densely populated islands with many wealthy residents but getting to England in a reasonable time involves a plane journey. There has been something of an historic affinity with Southampton as Matt Le Tissier came from the islands (although my islands football correspondent supports Leeds). In the Isles of Scilly quite a few people follow Plymouth Argyle although actually getting to a Saturday match would involve being away for 48 hours.

On the Channel Islands the focus has been on leagues on the two main islands of Jersey and Guernsey, but above all the annual Muratti Vase cup competition between the two islands which sparks a fierce rivalry.   The smaller island of Alderney also take part, but have only won it once in 1920.

Guernsey has come up with a unique solution to the limits of island competitive football. They have entered an island team in the national non-league system called Guernsey FC. With the help of a rumored £750,000 sponsorship from Sportingbet they are flying opposition teams to the islands and providing them with accommodation, something you don't normally get in Step 6 of the non-league system.

What is more they have taken their Combined Counties League division by storm and look certain to get promoted. Attendances have generally been well over 1,000 with a record of 1,752. However, some tensions have now developed between the island team and the individual teams. The best players naturally prefer to play in the island team which draws on all the local teams but now they have been accused of asset stripping.

The island of Jersey is not considering following the Guernsey formula, perhaps because the rival island thought of it first.

Wyn Grant is a regular contributor to Albion Road and also the publisher of footballeconomy.com, a website covering the business and economy of the game of football.