Exclusive: Portsmouth Supporters Trust Frustrated with Takeover Delay

By Ismail Uddin

Portsmouth Supporters Trust (PST) have revealed their frustrations over Portpin rejecting their offer for Fratton Park delaying the prospective takeover of Portsmouth.

The PST agreed a provisional deal for English League One team Portsmouth but Balram Chainrai’s company Portpin must agree to sell the stadium and administartors PKF are going to court to secure the rights to the stadium clearing a path for the takeover.

A PST spokesman told iSportconnect: “It is very frustrating because at the end of the day it holds up the deal. We’re in a position where the club desperately need stability and without that, it makes it harder to attract players and keep players and tie them to longer term contracts.

“The key frustration surrounds the delay it brings. Pompey have been in administration now for the best part of ten months and really we want to get a result as soon as possible, but we’re confident we got a strong case to take to the High Court and we’re hopeful that we can finally draw a line under this and take control of the club and start moving forward again.”

Once the takeover is finalised PST is looking to reconnect the football club with the fan base, which they hope will result in increased attendances.

“One of the strategies is to reconnect the club with its fan base. A lot of our fans are a bit battered and bruised. They’ve lost a little bit of faith in the football club,” the spokesman added.

“The thing is to rebuild the bridges with our fan base. At the moment, our average attendance is holding up quite well, we’re in the bottom-third of League One, but we’re still averaging 12-13,000 which is a testament to the loyalty of our fans.

“We think we can get more out of that and by doing the right things off the field and engaging with them, we can improve our average attendance, which will improve our revenue, which will hopefully give us the opportunity then to expand on the playing side and help the team get up the table.”