Exclusive:John Mousinho details Portsmouth transfer boost as Michael Eisner ramps up financial backing

John Mousinho has revealed Pompey’s playing budget has been increased by 16 per cent.

While the Blues’ transfer kitty has this summer also been ramped up by owners Tornante to drive Championship ambition.

According to the head coach, chairman Michael Eisner has stepped up his financial backing for the 2026-27 campaign to provide a more ‘competitive chances’.

Mousinho has overachieved with one of the smallest Championship budgets over the last two seasons, recording finishes of 16th and 18th respectively since promotion from League One.

Those financial restrictions have drawn criticism from some of the Fratton faithful, who have called for more aspirational leadership from their owners.

The response has seen sporting director Rich Hughes and Mousinho being handed greater spending power in this summer’s transfer window.

‘I think it’s a really healthy number’

Mousinho told The News: ‘We have increased the budget, so we've gone up again.

‘If you look at where the Championship has been over the last couple of seasons, for non-parachute payment clubs the budget increase last year was around 16 per cent. If you include parachute payment clubs, that ups everything to about 25 per cent. They skew everything a bit.

‘But, if you look year-on-year for budgetary increases, around 16 per cent is probably where we (Pompey) are going to be from last year to this year. I think it’s a really healthy number, but relative. Unfortunately everybody spends money and you are roughly in the same spot.

‘With the new rules, we think there are going to be a couple of clubs who maybe don’t have that level of increase and a couple of owners who won’t necessarily put that money in next year.

‘Hopefully that makes us rise up the league a bit and gives us more of a competitive chance, but, at the moment, we don’t know.

‘I guess it’s one of the frustrations of owning a football club, which I can understand. The pressure to spend money and lose money is absolutely massive - and we have increased the budget again this year.

‘So the owners are going to lose even more money, they are going to put much more equity into the football club, but it doesn't necessarily mean you’re all of a sudden going to be able to compete with everyone else in the league.’

Rocco Shein and Marko Milovanovic targeted

Mousinho is hoping to add ‘a couple’ of new signings to his squad before Sunday’s departure for their pre-season training camp.

Intriguingly, the level of fees mooted for targets Rocco Shein and Marko Milovanovic are significantly higher than previous transfer window dealings by the Blues.

And Mousinho admitted such figures reflect an improved transfer budget since last summer spending around £1m on each of Luke Le Roux, Mark Kosznovszky and Josh Knight.

He added: ‘Away from wages and all that is being restricted by the new league rules, the transfer budget will also go up this year from where we’ve been over the past couple of seasons.

‘There is more money available to us to spend on fees’

‘We have moved away from what we were in League One, when we thought it was a decent-enough jump in year one and year two.

‘When the dust settles and we look back at it, while it was relatively quite a big jump, you look at what everyone else is spending in the league. Derby have reportedly spent £6m on Bobby Clark, so everything shifts really, really quickly - and they’re a side which came up with us two years ago.

‘There is more money available for us to spend on fees and we have to get it right, we have to make sure we spend it on the right players. We must do that in the right way, underpinning everything else which goes on at the football club.’

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