Portsmouth formally enter administration today (Friday 26th), the first EPL club to do so.

The move was forced on Pompey’s latest owner, Hong Kong-based businessman Balram Chainrai this week after talks with a four potential bidders broke down.

The cash-strapped South Coast outfit faced being wound-up by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs in London’s High Court on Monday March 1^st over £12m in unpaid taxes. So set a final deadline of Friday for a sale to be completed.

Media attention focused on two groups. Hong Kong-based “investment company” Endeavour Sports, fronted by New Zealand businessman Victor Cattermole and a multi-national group fronted by South Africans and known as the “South African consortium”.

But it was almost immediately clear that no deal would be possible within Chainrai’s timeframe.

Cattermole openly admitted as much, claiming that his group would require 30 days due diligence. While the South African consortium withdrew when they discovered the extent to which future club income had already been spent to deal with current debts.

By Thursday, accountants UHY Hacker Young were already working at the club’s Fratton Park ground, preparing for the inevitable. Andrew Adronikou, an insolvency practitioner from the firm, will be the administrator.

In a club statement released on Tuesday, Phil Hall, the spokesman for Chainrai and “his investors”, said: “Administration would mean the club re-emerging as a healthy financial entity,” although precisely how this would happen is not yet clear.

Football creditors must be paid in full. Bur Chainrai also looks likely to get back the £17m he loaned the club in October.

His loans were “secured” against Fratton Park itself, meaning that Chainrai effectively owns the ground and could seek repayment of at least part of his money from the proceeds of its sale.

Other creditors, including HMRC and former owner Sacha Gaydamak - who still claims he is owed £28m, £9m of which was due in January – will have to queue for their portion of whatever other money the administrators can raise.

Portsmouth had tried to persuade the football authorities to allow them to sell players outside the transfer window.

FIFA raised no objections. But a number of EPL member clubs did, and the idea was mothballed. The EPL is still hopeful that they can advance a number of future payments to Pompey, in order to cover short-term expenditure, such as continuing payroll costs.

Administration attracts an automatic nine-point penalty, turning Pompey’s relegation from “likely” to “near-certainty.” It does, however, mean that Monday’s winding-up petition has been withdrawn.

Oh, and the team lost at home to Stoke last Saturday, to a 96^th-minute winner.

Clownish ex-owner Sulaiman Al-Fahim sent a “private and confidential” resignation letter to the Pompey board on Monday…via the Arabian Business magazine’s web-site.

He stood down as director and non-executive chairman, citing the board’s inability to respond to his requests for financial updates.

He declared he would donate his 10% shareholding to Pompey’s Supporters Trust. But this “donation” was quickly exposed as another PR-stunt from the publicity-hungry “property tycoon.”