FOOTBALL - Portsmouth's Premier League season goes from bad to worse. Not only are the club bottom of the league, ridden with debt and banned from signing any players until they settle their debts, but they now also find that their chief executive Peter Storrie has appeared in court on charges of tax evasion. The tax evasion charges relate to the signing-on fee paid to Senegalese midfielder Amdy Faye when he joined from French club Auxerre back in 2003. 57-year-old Storrie was bailed to appear at Southwark Crown Court on 20 January.The case has been adjourned for a plea and case management hearing, and Storrie has already said that he will defend himself in the "strongest possible terms" against the charge of tax evasion, which in officialdom-speak relates to "one count of cheating the public revenue between July 1, 2003 and November 28, 2007." It is alleged that Storrie arranged for the signing-on fee to Faye to be paid via the bank account of a, it is fair to say, fairly notorious players' agent called Willie McKay in order to "conceal its true nature and purpose," which therefore caused "a failure on the part of the club to operate PAYE and account for income tax and national insurance contributions in respect of that fee."
We await January 20 with interest.
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