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After bringing forward his pre-Hull press conference, presumably because he wanted an early chance to react to the nine-point penalty, Grant said: ‘Even though the writing was on the wall a long time ago and I tried to tell everybody we would do our best, for me, this is a sad day.
‘It is also sad for the Premier League that this has happened for the first time in its history to what is the best league in the world. A football decision has not been decided on the pitch, it has been decided in an office somewhere, and that is wrong.
‘What is Portsmouth? The people now, or before? That is the question. What they have done with this decision is not punish the people who did something wrong, so now the people who come along next time will think 'okay, I can go away to my house and they will punish the fans and everybody who came after. This is not good.
‘Do you think this decision will be a warning to the next ones who want to do something wrong? I do not think so.’
Grant would not be drawn on his future, or that of the players now facing up to the prospect of Championship football next season.
‘I cannot tell you anything about the future. I will talk with the players about it tomorrow, and we will make a decision, and go from there,’ he said.
‘It is not easy, because we still believed that even with all the difficulties we could fight against relegation, because Portsmouth did that a few years ago. Now, we need to think about everything.’
‘Football needs to be decided on the pitch. You need to give all of the teams an equal chance, which we did not have in this case. The decision was taken a long time ago that Portsmouth would not stay in the Premier League, for one reason or another.
‘Do the people who have now been punished deserve it? The fans do not, they did nothing wrong. They players have always tried to do their best for the team in difficult circumstances.
‘We do not have a duty to the other teams - the Premier League has a duty to the other teams. We have a duty for Portsmouth. We tried everything in the last month to keep what I think the spirit of football is about.
‘I do not see any reason why we should not do that even when we do not have a target. If we had given up before, people would not have thought that was good for the Premier League. We need to hear what the players think about what we need to do from now on.’
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