Portsmouth: Michael Isner warns that the tournament faces a financial “disaster”.

Portsmouth chairman Michael Isner has warned of financial disaster looming in the Championship after Pompey became the latest Second Division club to make losses.

While the loss of £4.36m for the 2024-25 financial year is relatively modest compared to rivals Hull City, which reported a loss of £41.7m in December, and Coventry City, which recorded a loss of £21.6m last month, it follows the same uncomfortable trend.

Eisner, 84, the former Disney chief executive, fears English football has become dangerously out of balance with the Premier League’s wealth masking the problems below.

“There are dark clouds hovering over the English football pyramid, and it seems to me that there could be a real collapse with only the Premier League remaining,” Isner said.

“Every club in the Championship lost money last year. The combined operating loss for the 24 teams for the last full set of published results in 2023-24 was £411m.

“No club can survive in the long term in this system, and if this continues, there will be disaster.

“If the forces controlling the pyramid from the top levels to the bottom levels do not make football more sustainable and do so quickly, those dark clouds will provide more saturated red ink beyond what one can imagine.

“We need effective controls on the cost of player wages, a real interest in the fairer distribution of media revenues and for English football to join the rest of the sporting world in more advanced marketing of the broadcast and live product.

He added: “My family is riding roughshod in this storm, but if I were a historic Portsmouth fan, I would be screaming for a change in structure to protect the beautiful game, our clubs and their communities for generations to come.”