LONDON: Portsmouth on Friday became the first Premier League club to enter administration in a move designed

to protect the heavily-indebted club from going out of business altogether.

The move means Portsmouth will automatically be docked nine points, a penalty which virtually

guarantees the top flight’s bottom club will be relegated to the Championship at the end of the season.

The move into administration was confirmed at London’s High Court following the failure of attempts by Portsmouth’s Hong Kong-based owner Balram Chainrai to find a buyer willing to bail out a club which has debts in excess of 60 million pounds (90 million dollars).

Had Portsmouth not gone into administration, the

112-year-old club would

almost certainly have

been liquidated on Monday when a High Court judge

was due to rule on a winding-up petition brought by

the British tax authorities

over an unpaid Value

Added Tax (VAT) bill of 7.5 million pounds.