Portsmouth director answers key question over injecting funds into playing budget to compete with League One big guns

The Blues director has given a clear indication the club’s owners would consider supplementing their playing budget with additional finance to fund a promotion push.

Redman and fellow director Eric Eisner flew into England for a whistlestop visit, which took in today’s impressive 2-0 win over Bristol Rovers.

The board held talks last night in London, with more discussions planned with head coach John Mousinho before the pair return to America.

On the agenda, no doubt, will be squad planning and summer recruitment ahead of Mousinho’s first pre-season at Fratton Park.

Pompey are currently operating under Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP) rules in League One, which restrict sides to spending 60 per cent of their turnover on player salaries.

However, owners are allowed to inject equity to further supplement the budget under SCMP rules - which some of League One’s heaviest hitters have taken advantage of.

Tornante this week ploughed a further £9m into the club, to cover operating losses as well as training ground and stadium work.

That takes the total to £28m since the club was bought in 2017 - crucially as equity and not debt.

Redman stated that is an approach the owners could weight up when it comes to supporting Mousinho’s playing budget.

When asked if Tornante would consider supplementing the playing budget with equity in a fashion allowed under SCMP rules, Redman said: ‘Everything we are doing is in equity at the moment, so the answer is yes categorically.

‘But for any fans reading this that means no change from today.

‘It may be massive changes for others, but not for us.

‘I don’t want people to misperceive that is not something we are doing today.

‘That is 100 per cent how Portsmouth Football Club works today (money is injected as equity).

‘One thing to clarify is our aim is promotion.

‘It’s hard in advance to set things like a playing budget. There’s lots of factors going into it.

‘That said, our objective would be to have that as high as possible.

‘Results on the pitch, performance in cup competitions all come into it.

‘Our financial results will be filed in not even a month, where you get to see if what we said last about the playing budget going up year on year is true.

‘For someone who is really interested in that topic, they can check.’