Record transfers · fees in & out · the Fratton Park money trail
Almost every one of Pompey's biggest fees — in and out — falls in a three-year window either side of the 2008 FA Cup: the Gaydamak-era spending spree, then the 2009 fire-sale that paid for it. Here are the record signings, the record sales, and the deals that turned a big profit.
For a few seasons in the late 2000s, tiny Portsmouth spent like a giant — and then had to sell like a club in freefall, because it was.
Backed by owner Alexandre Gaydamak's money and Harry Redknapp's contacts, Pompey broke their transfer record again and again. Benjani (£4.1m, 2006) gave way to a 2007 spree — Sulley Muntari, John Utaka, David Nugent, Lassana Diarra and Glen Johnson all arriving inside a year — before the club record was smashed twice more in 2008 with Jermain Defoe (£7.5m) and then Peter Crouch (£11m), still the most Portsmouth have ever paid for a player.
The reckoning came fast. As the finances unravelled through 2008–09, the best players were cashed in at a premium: Diarra to Real Madrid for around £18.9m, Glen Johnson to Liverpool for £18.5m, and Defoe back to Tottenham for about £15.75m — the three biggest sales in the club's history, all within about eight months. It still wasn't enough to keep the club solvent, but for a while Fratton Park had been the unlikeliest home of eight-figure football.
