PFA chief to meet Portsmouth hierachy over non-payment of players' wages

Posted Friday, January 01, 2010 by BBC.com

PFA chief to meet Portsmouth hierachy over non-payment of players' wages
The PFA chief executive is set for a series of meetings at crisis club Portsmouth.

The chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, Nick Cusack, will meet Portsmouth officials on Monday for talks about the state of the club's finances, after yesterday's disclosure that players' wages had not been paid on time for a third month this season. Portsmouth said that they expected the squad to be paid on Tuesday.

A statement released by the club read: "The club has been assured of receipt of funds by Tuesday and the owner and Board have been working hard on resolving the short term delay."

Portsmouth's owner, the Saudi Arabian businessman Ali al-Faraj, has never visited the club. It is expected that Cusack will meet with Mark Jacob, Faraj's lawyer, who sits on the board as executive director. Cusack hopes to agree a medium-term strategy to stop Portsmouth's players going unpaid again this season. The PFA does not wish to further destabilise Avram Grant's squad. Portsmouth are bottom of the Premier League.

On Wednesday it emerged that Portsmouth had been served with a winding up petition from HM Revenue & Customs on 23 December. That development followed the imposition of a Premier League transfer embargo in mid-October.

The Republic of Ireland defender Steve Finnan, who is one of the club's senior professionals, last night became the first member of the squad to admit that the uncertainty over Portsmouth's financial future is affecting the players.

"You try and do your job as best you can," he said. "There is obviously talk, the players obviously talk about what is going on, about getting paid. Everyone is in the same position. The lads have tried their best. But as players we have to get on with our job for the club and hopefully things can resolve themselves.

"But I think no one really seems to know what is going on. It worries us, its not nice for the fans, they have obviously been supporting the club for a long time. It's just not fair on them."

Cusack has arranged a meeting with Finnan and his colleagues on Tuesday, at which he will discuss his meeting with the club's executive the previous day. The PFA will also meet with the Premier League to try to find common ground on the issue. Cusack hopes the players' union and the governing body will be able to hold a joint meeting with the club.

If the Portsmouth players' salaries have not been paid by Tuesday, Cusack will expect the Premier League to exert extra pressure on the club's hierarchy, beyond the watching brief it has so far kept on a club whose debts of at least £60m are threatening to take it into administration.

Sources at the Premier League say it may decide to withhold a further instalment of television money which is due to Portsmouth at the end of this season. The governing body has already reserved the right to do so regarding next month's payment. That money will go towards paying other English clubs what Portsmouth owe them for previous transfers.

If the players' salaries fail to arrive on Tuesday then the squad will have the option of serving a mandatory 14 days notice to terminate their contracts. For now, there is no suggestion that they are seriously considering this.