With Portsmouth set to exit administration and be burdened with yet another 10-point deducation (be it for this season or next), we ask two Football League fans whether this form of punishment is fair...
Marc McLaren â Coventry City fan
Ten points. Deducted. In the Premier League it would take Fulham - currently in the top half - into the bottom three. In the Championship it would see Charlton in ninth fall all the way to 23rd.
But down in League One the effect is less extreme. Coventry City, the latest club to enter administration and incur such a deduction, now find themselves in 16th. Add the points back on and they'd still only be 11th and by now out of the play-off picture. Hardly a penalty, some might say - and indeed some are saying.
But that's missing the point â and I say that not just as a lifelong Sky Blues fan, but also as a lifelong football fan.
Why? Well imagine watching the most exciting movie ever, then realising halfway through that actually it's not a film, it's real. And you're in it. And the bad guy's got his hands around your throat. That's what being a Coventry City fan is like right now.
On first viewing, this appears to be your typical modern football thriller: big(ish) club fallen on hard times, shadowy owners, huge debts, possible homelessness, administration, points deduction. ItâÂÂs just a sequel to Portsmouth: The Gaydamak Identity or Dude, WhereâÂÂs My Leeds? Only itâÂÂs not quite that simple.
Because unlike almost all the other members of English football's Administration Society, Coventry City never got anything out of it themselves.
Seriously â sometime over the past 15 years we've run up tens of millions of pounds worth of debt and ultimately ended up going bust, but at the same time have been relegated twice in just over a decade, never been close to promotion, sold all of our best players and found ourselves without a stadium.
It's like selling your soul to the devil in exchange for a Cypriot pension.
At least Portsmouth got an FA Cup out of it, and Leeds the thrill of that Champions League run. We got nothing. Zilch. In fact we got less than that â we got year after year of decline.
How did that happen? Well there's no shortage of people to blame. Start with the current owners SISU, a hedge fund who bought the club in 2007 and supposedly put in ã50m to keep us afloat.
Given that in that time we've sold players of the calibre of Leon Best, Keiren Westwood, Lukas Jutkiewicz and Marlon King, while bringing in a motley collection of has-beens and never-will-bes, thereâÂÂs no way that moneyâÂÂs gone on the playing staff. TheyâÂÂve appointed ten managers in that time, made bad decision after bad decision and even now, after all thatâÂÂs happened, refused to reveal whoâÂÂs actually in charge.
