More than a quarter of Pompey’s staff have been made redundant as the administrators waste no time in slashing overheads. Some 65 part-time employees and 20 full-time workers have gone.

Chief executive Peter Storrie is taking a 40 per cent cut in his basic pay and a couple of players have already spoken to the administration team about having their wages reduced.

Andrew Andronikou said Storrie would remain on a salary of ‘under £500,000’ until the club was sold.

The administrator said he believed he could run the club until the end of the season on around half the £14m suggested by the insolvency specialist Vantis.

Andronikou said cuts had been made across the board but in a sympathetic way. There was anger among some of those made redundant – reported to include office staff, employees in the ticket office, assistants in the club shop, coaches and press officers – that they were being made to carry the can.

None of the 49 members of the playing staff can be made redundant or be forced to take wage cuts, protected as they are by the football creditors’ rule.

Mike Crawford, who has worked in the kit warehouse for five years, said: ‘I feel betrayed by the club, I feel let down. I feel there are a lot of people to be blamed for doing this to the club. What I have been on, players have been earning in three days.’

Having met HMRC, Andronikou also said he was not unduly concerned by their efforts to challenge the move into administration, and he was confident that HMRC would approve the process.

Meanwhile, Pompey’s FA Cup semi-final will take place on Sunday, April 11, with a 4pm kick-off. Tickets will be sold by Ticketmaster – much to the annoyance of fans who found their handling of the semi-final and final in 2008 unacceptable – but no details have been released yet on when they will be sold or how preference will be worked out.

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