The stock exchange this morning has gone into meltdown as it was announced that a Chinese Owned Company is about to invest in Portsmouth FC.
The company in question is Portchester based Chinese takeaway The Hong Kong Garden and it believed that they are about to plough money into the Fratton Park club by taking out an advertising hoarding for the remainder of the League Two season with perhaps as much as £400 going into the Pompey coffers and being made avaialble to Paul Cook to bolster his squad ahead of a promotion push.
A spokesperson for The Hong Kong Garden who would only give her name as Siouxie made the following statement.
"Yes it is true that our business is thinking of investing in Portsmouth Football Club we have been offered an advertising hoarding directly behind the Fratton End goal and I can confirm that the price is £400.
However we are concerned that this is overpriced and we are considering alternatives like a programme advert for £200 .
Having studied club's of a similar size and level in the football pyramid in the area like Eastleigh, the Pompey offering does not offer us the chance of exposure to a large enough audience for the costs involved, however as we only deliver within a 3 mile radius of Portchester we were sadly unable to develop a partnership with Eastleigh and have now gone to our fall back option.
If we do decide to enter into partnership with Portsmouth Football Club then we feel that we can bring substantial knowledge into the mix, our analysts have told us that the football club has little experience in dealing with queues, our business excels in this area with Friday's and Saturday's being busiest when it is essential that we get our customers in and out of our premises quickly. There is much that they can learn from us."
At the moment The Hong Kong Garden has entered into a six week period of exclusivity with Pompey while it does due dillligence, although it is believed that other Chinese investors are waiting in the wings, the Jade Palace in Havant being one company mentioned as well as several Indian Restaurants, a Pizza place and a Kebab shop in Leigh Park.
A source close to the club who declined to be named said.
"At the moment there are harmful elements in the air with symbols clashing everywhere, this could bring substantial investment into the club and enable us to achieve our long term goal to establish ourselves as a top ten League One club within five years, whilst qualifying regularly for the semi finals of the English League Trophy (Formerly Johnstones Paint Trophy) .
When questioned about the fact that in China blue is considered an unlucky colour and that any new investor might want to change the club shirts to red the source said.
"If they are putting £400 into the club they are not probably going to be able to do that, however should they also take out an advert in the programme or sponsor the match ball for a game or two then they would signal that they are major investors and high net worth supporters, we would of course have to then seriously consider any proposition they put forward.
From a positive viewpoint we have noticed an increased number of red scarves in PO postcodes in recent years and this could perhaps be a market we could tap into "
The FTSE started the day 9.44 points up after the news broke, leading to a run on the Yen in the currency markets, Donald Trump will be addressing his fellow Americans when he gets up which will be about 2pm our time.