Concerns over the financial stability of South London football club Crystal Palace grew today after it emerged players will not be paid last months wages until next week.

The Championship side has lurched from crisis to crisis the past few years.

Late wages, a reported £30million debt including a £1million plus tax bill, a Chairman who wants to sell the club and the very ground may be sold from underneath the club are distractions a team chasing a Premier League spot, do not need.

Fans fear that if a buyer is not found soon, the club will go into administration and players will go for peanuts in a fire-sale, compound a ten point penalty we could see another Leeds United unfolding.

The Eagles were served with a winding-up petition last month after failing to pay HMRC £1.2million. They could be forced into administration if they fail to pay before a court hearing on January 27.


The last thing a club wants to do

Even the top flight is not immune to the hit clubs are taking during the recession, Portsmouth’s woes have been well documents and the failure to pay players on is just indicative of deeper problems at any team.

Be it cash-flow or no-flow, it is the last thing any Chairman wants to do.

As well as depriving professional sportsmen of their hard earned wedge it effects the fans, the staff, heads go down and it can show on the pitch.

At Palace the opposite seems to have happened, they are in fair form, through to the fourth-round of the FA Cup, up to ninth in the table and are just two places from the play-offs.

It is the second pay delay in a row, Selhurst Park were 10 days late with wages to players and management in November.


Manager confident

Manager Neil Warnock was confident at the weekend finances would be stabilised, telling the BBC:

"Me and the players haven't been paid but we will get paid," said Warnock.

"The lads have been brilliant in the circumstances. It is difficult for them, when they're not getting paid."

Importantly the Sheffield man says he trusts Chairman Simon Jordan:

"It's not easy for the chairman because he's put a lot of money in over the years

But the players' spirit is very good and we've just got to get on with it because there are a lot of worse things happening than just not getting paid for a few days."


Fire-sale - 'Leeds United scenario'

Jordan saved Palace from administration in 2000, but last year announced his intention to sell the club.

The club has twice since been subject to a transfer embargo, with the Palace players first informed that Jordan had "cashflow" problems at the end of November.

Warnock has been talking up his player’s book value of late, especially striker Victor Moses who is being courted by several big teams.



Ground up for sale

The cash-strapped sides also have their ground up-for sale after Paul Kemsley’s £500m property empire went into meltdown.

In April 2008 a 25 year lease was granted to Crystal Palace an annual rent of £1.2m, the club's owner Simon Jordan already had the option of buying the freehold under the terms of the 25-year lease agreement he secured for his club in 2008.

Jordan has yet to comment on whether he will exercise that right.

Under Croydon Council rules the site would have to remain a football stadium.

The Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance 2009 revealed only three clubs in the Premiership and Championship were not in debt - Birmingham City, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Scunthorpe United. The 20 Premier League clubs alone owed a total of £3.1billion in bank overdrafts, loans and other borrowings.

Players wages have kept rising.