Portsmouth Football Club have been issued with a winding-up petition by HM Revenue and Customs over unpaid taxes.
Pompey's chief executive David Lampitt said on Saturday that the club had failed to make two payments on owed tax totalling £1.6m. Portsmouth are searching for new owners after their parent company, Convers Sports Initiative (CSI) went into administration in November last year.
A spokesman for HM Revenue and Customs said: "Ensuring tax is paid on time should be at the centre of a football club's business strategy just as it should be for any other enterprise.
"Any business that regards paying tax as an optional extra after other expenses are met, or that uses tax collected from employees or customers as working capital, is potentially heading for trouble.
"It is only fair to those clubs and to other taxpayers who do meet their obligations that HMRC enforces payment of tax debts owed - and if need be, issues a winding up petition or seeks to appoint an administrator.
"There is little HMRC can do for a business - be it a football club or not - whose viability is dependent either on not paying the UK taxes to which they are liable, or on special treatment not available to other customers with similar tax affairs."
Portsmouth's need to find new backers is a matter of urgency if they are to continue to operate as a football club. On Friday, Italian businessman Joseph Cala pulled out of a deal to but the Fratton Park outfit.
"This period, while we search for a new owner, was always going to be difficult from a cash flow point of view," Lampitt said on Saturday.
"The club does not have the funding that would have been there if our previous owner had been in place. It has been a difficult two months to balance the financial position of the football club.
"We are in a difficult position and will remain in a difficult position until the ownership is sorted.
"For the time being, it is a matter between us and HMRC and we have to manage that as best we can."
