There was a debate about this in IRC, and I was pretty much the only one who said people should be fighting to help Portsmouth survive.
The high earners- Like Ben-Haim, should be taking a wage cut and helping the club survive. Obviously I don't know Ben-Haim's bank balance, but I can only assume after many years of playing professional football for teams like Chelsea, he has quite a bit of money left over. I know it's not his fault Portsmouth are in the mess they are in, its the owners fault, but Ben Haim can easily be part of the solution.
If he doesn't take a pay cut, the club will die. It's as simple as that. If the club dies, Ben Haim gets none of the money he is owed from this administration process. Same with all the other players. Even if Ben Haim leaves the club, he'll still get all the money owed, aslong as the club exit administration. It just comes across to me as a bit greedy from players like Ben Haim- It's clear he doesn't give two ***** about the club he plays for, but liquidation would see years of proud history & tradition gone down the drain. It wouldn't just affect the supporters of the club, it would hit the city of Portsmouth hard, and football would once more lose some of its intergrity.
When we was in administration, people give up everything to help the club survive. Not just the players who had lucrative salaries, the normal staff who were on their normal wages. They had to go without pay for about 9 months. It wasn't fair on them, it wasn't their fault, but they thought- If I don't go without pay, the club will die, and the fans and city loses Plymouth Argyle FC forever. The players had to do the same. Carl Fletcher, Romain Larrieu & Simon all took paycuts- If they didn't, we would be AFC Argyle in division 12, preparing for a blockbuster match against Torpoint United on the opening day of the season.
Even the man who took us over said he hated football- But he didn't it do to get some pounds in his pocket, he did it for the fans, staff and players of the club, who had been through so much. We're well on the way to recovery now after 7 months in administration, and I think there is hope for Portsmouth [And before people call us 'lucky', that would be hugely disrespectful to everything the fans, players and staff went through to help the club survive] - Aslong as those players don't come across as greedy, aslong as they take the paycuts and become part of the solution not the problem.. There's no problem why a fans trust can't come in and take over at Portsmouth. I think its fair to say, the fans know best, especially as the FA's fit & proper test is ****.
If there's a successful solution, Portsmouth will just have to learn from the lessons of their past. At the moment, they're on a life support machine, and their future is in the hands of people like Ben-Haim & Kanu. They will get ALL the money they are owed if they take this wage-cut, just over a 5 year period [or whatever time scale the new owner agree's. Every player has to agree to it, when we was about to exit administration, all the forms for every player had to be signed, and it was a long process] - But if the club is liquidated, what do they get from it? Nothing. Nobody wins if the club is liquidated.
[Sorry for the long post, this is just something that is close to my heart after the struggles we went through for so long!]
