Portsmouth Posts £16.7m Losses
Premier League club Portsmouth has announced losses of £16.66m for the 2007-08 financial year, despite winning the FA Cup.
The loss was nearly £7m less than the previous year and the club said it should see another reduction next year.
A club statement read: ‘The club is on course to break-even by the time Fratton Park is redeveloped to accommodate 30,000 fans by the season 2010/11.’
With Portsmouth a reported £80m in debt, owner Alexandre Gaydamak put the club up for sale in December.
The results do not include recent outgoing and incoming transfers. Portsmouth sold Pedro Mendes to Rangers for £3m and Sulley Muntari to Inter Milan for £12.7m last summer, while Lassana Diarra moved to Real Madrid for £20m and Jermain Defoe to Tottenham Hotspur for £15m this January.
The purchases of Peter Crouch (£9m), Younes Kaboul (undisclosed), Nadir Belhadj (undisclosed) and Hayden Mullins (undisclosed) were also not taken into account.
Last month Portsmouth postponed plans to build a new stadium and focus on redeveloping their current Fratton Park ground, partially due to the global credit crunch.
In the short term, the club will look to boost their coffers by building two new stands to increase the capacity of Fratton Park by 10,000 to 30,000. Once the stadium is redeveloped, Portsmouth expects turnover to increase by 50%.
A new three-year television deal with Sky helped turnover for 2007-08 to rise from around £40m to £70m and there were increases in retail, sponsorship, match revenues and hospitality.
Portsmouth have had three managers this season – Harry Redknapp, Tony Adams and current caretaker boss Paul Hart – and have yet to secure their Premier League status this season.
