Debt-ravaged Portsmouth football club will not go out of business, the club's administrator has promised. Skip related content
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The south coast club has became the first Premier League outfit to go into administration - effectively guaranteeing demotion to the Championship.
Balram Chainrai - the club's fourth owner this season - took the decision on Thursday night after talks with four interested groups failed to lead to a takeover.Portsmouth, who are around £70m in the red, will be automatically docked nine points as a punishment.
It will leave them on seven points - 16 behind their closest rivals at the bottom of the Premier League.
Administrator Andrew Andronikou said Portsmouth should be able to play the rest of this season's fixtures but spending will be "cut to the bone".
"There is a great gap between the club's revenue flows and its spending and I have to cut costs," he said. "It's going to be a very difficult road ahead."
He said he could not give a 100% guarantee the club - nicknamed Pompey - will survive but said he was "confident" it would.
Mr Andronikou said there would be no fire sale of players but that one or two might be sold, hopefully in the near future if he gets permission from the Premier League.
Mr Andronikou said staff and players were paid on Thursday and that Portsmouth's situation was not dissimilar to other clubs who have gone into administration.
Ominously, he added: "Portsmouth has been a great smokescreen for everyone else."
The club's debts include more than £12m owed to HM Revenue and Customs, which issued a winding-up order against it, and a reported £30m to former owner Sacha Gaydamak.
Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie said he would tender his resignation when the club was sold.
Manager Avram Grant, who will stay on until the end of the season, said he was "very sad" and "very angry" about what has happened.
Sports writer Paul Hayward told Sky News Online: "There needs to be a full investigation by the Premier League into what has happened at Portsmouth.
"This is the richest league in the world and this is humiliating for the Premier League."
Insolvency experts UHY Hacker Young will now pore over the club's accounts and try to reach agreements with its creditors.
Fans of Portsmouth, who won the FA Cup just two seasons ago, were saddened but defiant about the news.
Joyce Tynan, 76, a fan since 1946, said: "It's heartbreaking. It's a good club with good staff and now I hope they carry on. If they carry on then I will."
Mrs Tynan blamed Sasha Gaydamak, former manager Harry Redknapp and Peter Storrie for plunging the club into financial chaos.
"Between them they should have seen this coming. They should have realised there was no money and not paid the players so much."
Matt Partridge from supporters' group Pompey Trust said: "This is a chance for a fresh start. Lessons must be learnt not just internally but across the whole footballing world.
The team's next game is against fellow strugglers Burnley.
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