Problems mount up for Crystal Palace days before Bristol City clash
Troubled Crystal Palace have been plunged into renewed crisis – just days before they meet Bristol City.
Preparations for Saturday's Coca-Cola Championship fixture at Selhurst Park have been overshadowed by news that Palace players have not been paid their wages on time for a second consecutive month.
Eagles chairman Simon Jordan has put the cash-strapped club up for sale and, unless a buyer can be found in the next week, Palace manager Neil Warnock will almost certainly be forced to sell his best players in the January transfer window.
And worse could follow if Palace fail to come through an HMRC winding-up order later this month and are forced to go into administration.
Jordan, who saved Palace from administration in 2000, last year announced his intention to sell the Championship club, and Palace have twice since been subject to a transfer embargo.
Despite off-field problems, Warnock is adamant his team will be fully focused on the task of playing City come the weekend. He said: "Me and the players haven't been paid yet, but we just have to get on with it.
"It's difficult for them, but the lads have been brilliant in the circumstances."
3 Comments
by David, Blackpool
Tuesday, January 05 2010, 8:50PM
“Ray, Crystal Palace helped create the professional league? I can't be too sure but I'm sure Palace didn't join the Football League until after WW1 when the league was expanded to 3 divisions, the same time the SAG's joined and I think Portsmouth joined about the same time, some 30-40 years after the founding of the professional game. I admit I might be a little out in my dates but neither Palace or Portsmouth could ever be considered to have helped create the professional game.”
by Ray, Phoenix, Arizona.
Tuesday, January 05 2010, 4:03PM
“Simon Jordan has always put his money where his mouth is and invested millions in keeping the club going.
If he has one fault, it has been by appointing a string of bad managers who spent his millions and got no return for the club.
Neil Warnock has been a revelation in his stint at Selhurst Park and has done it on a shoe string. Why do you always get the right man at the wrong time?
As a long time Palace fan, I hope that they will ride the storm and be saved from extinction, but I will not be holding my breath on that one.
Its so sad to see historic clubs such as Palace and Portsmouth, being forced out of the professional game they helped to create and if the amount of clubs now in financial meltdown continues, then the whole of football as we know it, will shortly be nothing more than history!
God bless the all.”
by Rob, Bristol
Tuesday, January 05 2010, 9:36AM
“My heart bleeds.
Tango man run out of cash?”