FC United of Manchester FC United of Manchester FC United of Manchester Badge FC United of Manchester Pitch In

FC United welcomes Portsmouth fans' victory in the High Court

FC United of Manchester has welcomed the news that Portsmouth FC could become the biggest community owned club in Britain following the resolution of the case brought by the south coast club’s administrator, Trevor Birch, yesterday in the High Court in London, over the sale of Fratton Park.

The deal, which means that Fratton Park can now be sold to the Club, removes the final hurdle which has seen fans of the Club pledge funds to a Pompey Supporters Trust (PST) Community Share Issue, and which will result in majority ownership by the Trust. They now have a further year to purchase as many shares as they can.

Around 2,000 Pompey fans have already pledged almost £2m and significant proportion of this is already in escrow. It is anticipated the rest of the pledges will be converted once the club is bought. As with the FC United community share issue, the Pompey community shares are not traded, but there will be significant benefits ’in kind’ of shareholding, not least saving the club from liquidation. However, PST believes there are a significant number of Pompey fans who have yet to commit to the scheme and they also hope the wider football-supporting community will also want to get on board with the project.

Welcoming the fans’ victory in the High Court, Andy Walsh, general manager of FC United, said: "This is brilliant news for Porstmouth fans and for football supporters everywhere. We have been in contact with the Pompey Supporters Trust and offered them our advice and support based on our own experience of being a supporter-owned club and running a successful community shares scheme. We are delighted at their success as Portsmouth fans move towards owning and running their own club in the near future. This demonstrates once again how important community shares will be for football fans wanting to gain a stake in their clubs and FC United are pleased to have pioneered this development."


First Posted ~ 21:14 Thu 11 Apr 2013
News ID ~ 4844
Last Updated ~ 02:08 Tue 16 Feb 2021