Portsmouth’s debt figure has certainly proved “flexible.” One media outlet had the debt “approaching £120m” in the headline, and £122.8m two paragraphs later.

Andrew Andronikou, the very high-profile joint-administrator (go on, name the others), promised he would investigate Pompey’s murkier recent financial dealings, which, to many, means all of them.

His priority is, of course, to get as much money for Pompey’s creditors. But Pompey fans’ groups have pertinently asked how true debt figures can be published when so much is disputed and when Andronikou has postponed investigation until the administration is complete?

 

Such was the size of the debt that otherwise perceptive commentators have interpreted it as a simple case of money madness.

The idea that there remain two strands to Portsmouth’s tale – the over-spending of the Alexandre Gaydamak era and the curious activities and personnel of the last six months – is being submerged by the mountain of stories about the mountain of debt.

Questions about post-Gaydamak events are being treated as the over-active imaginings of “conspiracy theorists,” a phrase usually translated as “crackpots.”

Andronikou has made great play of his puzzlement at the headline-grabbing £1m Portsmouth owe Spurs for a transfer which never happened, and promised to investigate that, despite the emergence of credible explanations.

Yet current owner Balram Chainrai pocketed £4m from the club in January – before becoming owner and while the EPL were grabbing all Pompey’s income to pay age-old bills.

About this Andronikou has asked and said nothing. Even if there is a rational explanation for the withdrawal, none is forthcoming from the otherwise hardly tight-lipped joint-administrator.

But suspicions about the last six months, including the administration itself, will continue. Unless Ali Al-Faraj, Portsmouth’s “owner” between October and February, turns up in person, in front of the cameras, to receive any money he is owed.