Portsmouth will always owe one club for bailing them out of £4m Spurs transfer | OneFootball

The signing of Kevin Prince-Boateng from Spurs in 2009 didn't work out, but he wasn't the biggest problem Pompey face at that particular time.

FA Cup winners in 2008, Portsmouth's financial problems were already building when they signed Kevin-Prince Boateng from Spurs the following year, but the move didn't work out and Pompey were lucky to find a buyer for him.

Portsmouth's 2008 FA Cup win against Cardiff City was a huge achievement for the club.

It was their first major trophy since they became the champions of England in 1949 and 1950, and it came at the end of five consecutive seasons of Premier League football, with the 2007-08 season having ended with them in eighth place in the table.

But if that win marked a high point for the club, the fall would be both deep and long-lasting. Cup-winning manager Harry Redknapp left for Spurs in October 2008, and the 2008-09 season ended with them in 14th place in the Premier League, with the club's serious financial issues starting to become evident and the ownership situation increasingly chaotic.

By the summer of 2009, it was clear that cost-cutting wasn't just necessary but urgent. But at the same time, the club did spend a small amount of money on bringing in new recruits.

Tommy Smith and Mike Williamson arrived from Watford for £1.8 million and £2 million respectively, but it would be the arrival of attacking midfielder Kevin Prince-Boateng from Spurs for £4 million that became their most expensive arrival of the summer.

Kevin-Prince Boateng had made his name in the Bundesliga with Hertha Berlin, persuading Tottenham Hotspur to pay £5.4 million for him in July 2007. But Boateng was not a success at White Hart Lane, and in January 2009 he was loaned to Borussia Dortmund.

Even then, there was a problem. Spurs wanted £4.5 million to make the move permanent, but Dortmund disagreed over the valuation, with their CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke saying of Spurs' valuation of the player that, "We will definitely not pay €5m" and that "Maybe they will change their expectations regarding the price."

Instead, Portsmouth stepped in and signed Boateng £4 million, a lot of money for a player described as the former Spurs sporting director Damian Comolli's "most expensive mistake."

Initially, though, it looked as though it might just work. He scored his first goal for his new club against Bolton Wanderers on the 12th September, and was voted Portsmouth's Player of the Month at the end of that month.

Pompey's problems ran deep, however.

By the start of October, there was talk that the players' wages were not being paid on time, and then the club was sold to Ali al-Faraj, a buyer whose actual involvement with the club was so slight that he became known by Pompey supporters as "Al Mirage."

By the start of February 2010, manager Paul Hart had been sacked and replaced with Avram Grant, and Portsmouth were somehow on their fourth new owners of the season.

On the 26th of that month, the club became the first Premier League club to collapse into administration. Already seven points adrift at the foot of the Premier League at that point, the nine-point deduction they picked up meant any realistic chance they had of retaining their place in the top flight come the end of the season had evaporated.

Three weeks prior to the club's collapse into administration, Kevin-Prince Boateng came on as a substitute during Portsmouth's 5-0 defeat at Manchester United, a match which featured them scoring three own goals.

But an ankle injury would keep him on the sidelines for all bar three of their remaining league games that season. Including their points deduction, Pompey ended the season on just 19 points.

Yet somehow, Avram Grant masterminded a return to Wembley in the FA Cup final for the second time in three years. Wins against Coventry, Sunderland, Southampton and Birmingham to set up a semi-final against Boateng's former club Spurs, and he stepped up to the penalty spot with three minutes of extra-time to play to score and confirm a shock 2-0 win and a place in the final against Chelsea.

The score was still tied at 0-0 when Portsmouth were awarded a penalty nine minutes into the second half of that final. Boateng stepped up for Pompey again, but this time his kick was saved by Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech.

Five minutes later, Didier Drogba scored to give Chelsea the lead, and despite another miss from the spot by Frank Lampard - making this the first FA Cup in which both teams had missed a penalty outside of shootouts - they hung on to win the game 1-0.

That summer, the club's administrators had little choice but to have a fire-sale of players, and Portsmouth did get lucky with the sale of Boateng. Genoa offered £5 million to take him to Serie A, and Pompey couldn't afford to turn it down. They even made a profit on the sale, not that they really even saw any of the money, as every penny Portsmouth was being swallowed up just keeping them alive.

Boateng would go on to be a success in Italy and beyond. Immediately loaned to AC Milan, he won the Serie A title in 2011 and would also win the DFB-Pokal with Eintracht Frankfurt in 2018. He even had a loan spell with Barcelona in 2019 before beginning his career back where he started it with Hertha Berlin before retiring in 2023.

Portsmouth, however, would not be so lucky. They were relegated in two further successive seasons in 2012 and 2013, and ended up staying in League Two for four years before beginning their revival by winning the League Two title in 2017. They haven't returned to the Premier League since falling in 2010.

Patchy form and injuries didn't help, but it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that a healthy Portsmouth FC would likely have made better use of Kevin-Prince Boateng.

His post-Fratton Park career confirmed his ability, and Pompey's problems at the time were clearly far, far greater than any one particular player.

In the summer of 2009, he was a player that they couldn't afford, though as subsequent events would prove, Portsmouth probably couldn't afford anybody at the time. At least, they may reflect, they made a profit on his sale, and during that particularly dark period in the club's history, they needed every penny they could get.