Sports Minister Gerry Sutcliffe hopes Portsmouth's plunge into administration will ensure football get its financial house in order. Pompey became the first Barclays Premier League side to enter administration on Friday morning after failing in their quest to find a buyer for the club, who are believed to be £70million in debt.

"Hopefully all the problems at Portsmouth will be a massive wake up call to all involved," Sutcliffe said.

"It's very sad for the club and the supporters. It's a club who just a few years ago who were in the FA Cup final."

Sutcliffe is concerned about the number of top-flight sides currently saddled with debt.

"We have been concerned by this for some time," said Sutcliffe.

"It's not the government's job to run football but as a critical friend and as a funder of football we think it's important that they should tighten up their rules.

"We are pleased that the Premier League have improved their rules, as has the Football League, but the Pompey situation means that clearly we need to go a step further and we have set that challenge to the Premier League and the other leagues to look at this because we can't afford to keep having clubs going into administration.

"It's bad for the league, it's bad for them as businesses, it's bad for the supporters and it's bad for the game of football. it's detrimental to the fans, to the clubs, to the status of the league."

The Labour MP for Bradford South hopes greater supporter representation at board level could help clubs avoid being plunged into financial meltdown.

"We fund supporters' trusts, supporters direct and we like the idea of having a supporter on every board through the supporters' trust movement," he added.

"That might not be the ideal situation but we have got to have to look at different models of running clubs to make sure we avoid situations like the one we're in today."