Portsmouth FC has become the first Premier League club to enter administration.
With debts of about £60m, the club was due to face a winding-up order on 1 March over an unpaid £11.7m tax bill owed to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
It will now be docked nine points, leaving the team facing near certain relegation.

Portsmouth become the first club in the Premier League’s 18 year history to fall into administration. It will be docked nine points as a result, effectively ensuring it will drop down at the end of the season.

The proposition of top flight clubs falling into such financial problems has previously seemed unlikely simply because of the huge payments received from Sky television as part of the broadcasting contract.

However, clubs which have fallen out of the top flight have often met this fate, including Ipswich, Southampton and Leicester. Portsmouth won the FA Cup in 2008, with a team full of internationals on reportedly high wages.
Mr Chainrai, who is looking to recover a £17m loan he made to the previous owners, moved to prevent the club from being wound up in the High Court on Monday over £7.5m owed to HM Revenue and Customs.
The automatic nine-point penalty will leave Pompey struggling with just seven points, 16 behind their nearest rivals.

Joyce Tynan, 76, a Portsmouth fan since 1946, told Channel 4 News: “It’s heartbreaking. It’s a good club with good staff and now I hope they carry on. If they carry on, then I will.”
Speaking outside the club’s Fratton Park ground, Mrs Tynan blamed its former managment for plunging the club into financial chaos.