Perhaps now the waters are clear for serious bidders to come alongside

Another week in the life of Portsmouth fans, and that's meant another seven days of uncertainty, speculation, guesswork, frustration and growing anger - but at least one bit of "muddying the waters" has finally sunk back where it always belonged, into the depth where, as yet, there are no submerged casinos, and no fortunes to be made, unless you own a fleet of oil rigs in the right place at the right time.

Italian-American businessman - and "businessman" is a term I use only for the want of a better alternative - self-professed "front runner" in the race to takeover at Fratton Park, finally came out yesterday and admitted he had withdrawn from the running. But was he ever in the running? And, if there is currently any "race", then it's being run at an agonisingly slow pace.

So, what next? Andrew "Handy Andy" Andronikou, the man appointed as administrator in the winding up of CSI's affairs, says he still has interested parties, and has confirmed that life-long Pompey fan, Brian Howe, former front man with successful rockers Bad Company, has actually declared an interest in buying the club, a topic that has been the subject of some debate among fellow fans recently.

Beyond that, however, Handy Andy is saying little more than nothing, but then as these sort of negotiations are usually done amidst secrecy and Non Disclosure agreements, that should not come as any surprise to anyone. The fact that Joe Cala went against this accepted norm, and that at least one local journalist (and his employers, presumably) was willing to give him a stage on which to act out his fantasy, was enough to convince most right-thinking fans that his bid was a non-starter. Half an hour researching on-line should have been enough to convince anyone else of the same.

Some fans did declare that they would rather take Cala than nothing, but then Cala was as much "nothing" as no bids at all, and, in the unthinkable circumstances of him ever having succeeded, the ultimate consequences for the club would probably have been even worse than they seem now.

So, back to the facts, and the here and now. What exactly do we know? Well - nothing really, which is more or less where we've been since Vladimir Antonov first appeared in court and Balram Chanrai moved to put CSI into administration with such speed, that the documents must have been drawn up, ready and waiting, like a firing squad eager to expend their volley and watch the corpse drop.

Chanrai himself, is, of course, a key player in all this. He is the major creditor of CSI, with Sacha Gaydamak also holding a powerful card,plus perhaps another "Joker" in the form of the "ransom strip" of land he owns that adjoins Fratton Park. Both want to claw back as much as possible from the administration, although either - or both - may ultimately decide that it would be better to take any reasonable offer, than to hang on, let the whole thing crash through the buffers, and then find that their respective "investments" have either lost an immense percentage, or at best are tied up in what could turn out to be an extremely protracted and potentially costly legal stalemate.

As things currently stand, it is little wonder that thousands of fans are in utter despair, and Handy Andy's performance to date has done little to inspire confidence in his ability to keep the fat out of the fire, even at the eleventh hour, but we should remember that, whilst the man is sometimes as close to a media disaster as a certain reporter on the local newspaper, he does not command the fees he does by being totally useless at his main job, which is as an official administrator of businesses that have collapsed, for whatever reason.

He, and his company, will get paid, whatever the outcome of all this, and that fact is, in itself, a powerful card in the game of bluff and brag that is currently going on. He may listen to Chanrai, or he may not, but legally he is bound to act impartially, in the best interests of all creditors, under pretty strict legal guidelines. To act otherwise would put his very lucrative career at serious risk.

Fratton Park, once the grand old lady that has been home to Portsmouth Football Club since 1898, now looking more like a bag lady, and woefully under capacity for any club in the top two tiers of English football. Owned by Chanrai, rented out to CSI, and now Baloo apparently doesn't want to be "landlord" any longer, but insists that someone must buy the ground from him as part of any deal.

Many fans are suggesting that no serious player would stump up however many millions an eventual takeover of club and ground might cost. What's the point, they say? Why would anyone risk that sort of money, unless they were an oil-rich arab, with nothing better to do with his money, and possibly a love of sea air and old ships?

The answer to that lies partly in the Gaydamak land, without which the oft-vaunted plan to spin the ground through ninety degrees would be a definite non-starter. Gaydamak knows this, and he also knows something else - with his plot of land available, any new stadium would be much more than just a replacement for our current Old Lady.

Imagine that the Fratton End becomes an elongated new stand along the length of the new pitch. Imagine too, if you will, a multi-tiered structure, complete with corporate boxes. Imagine a little further, and consider the amount of space under and behind such a stand - corporate hospitality facilities, and, quite likely, a hotel of some considerable size, from which wealthy guests could make their way to their costly boxes, without once having to step out into the winter air, and return, after the final whistle, via the same sheltered route.

Such a hotel would not be cheap to build, of course, but there are still a lot of very cash-rich companies that are ready to invest in this sort of vision; it's been done with other grounds in Europe, and there are a few examples of the same thinking already in this country. They are potentially huge money-spinners, although the returns do not tend to come overnight, so a much longer, more stable source of investment is paramount.

Any corporation in this field would not, ultimately, haggle over a few million to get such a project off the blocks. It could be arab money, it could be money from China, or even India. And we ought not to discount the USA, either. Like oursleves, their general population is suffering in the current financial squeeze, but, also like us, their rich elite have got more money than you can shake a tax man at.

Will any of this come to pass, though? To be honest, I have no idea, but I have seen what has been done elsewhere, and I also know that Portsmouth as a city, and as the home of the Royal Navy, has a history and a heritage which is the envy of the world, with a tourism potential that has never yet been anywhere near fully exploited by our "ruling fathers".

So, whilst I am as nervous and concerned as any other Portsmouth fan, I am still keeping myself cheerful, and more than just a little hopeful. Time alone will give us the answer, of course, but I have to believe, and to carry on hoping, at least until, or unless, events ultimately dash all hope.

And that, if it happened, would be a grim day, not just for the club and its thousands of supporters, but for the city of Portsmouth itself, and maybe for the future of English football as well.