Under-fire Portsmouth Trust chairman apologises after calls for his resignation over controversial Labour 'endorsement'

Donald Vass recorded a video backing Labour’s Amanda Martin, who is standing against Penny Mordaunt in the Portsmouth North constituency.

In his address, the Chichester-based teacher introduced himself as chairman of the Trust while positioned in front of Fratton Park, and provided personal reasons why people should vote for Martin.

The 47-second video was yesterday posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, by Martin on her account with the message: ‘Fantastic to have the support and backing from Donald Vass chair of the Pompey Supporters Trust’.

Vass’ involvement and reference to his position on the Trust board subsequently attracted a number of complaints from members to the Trust, while supporter group PFC Coalition called for his immediate resignation over the ‘totally unacceptable’ video.

The video was removed by Martin on Monday evening after attracting 8.9k views and 54 likes, while Vass also publicly apologised for his ‘error of judgement’.

In a statement posted on X, Vass said: ‘I want to personally front up and apologise - this was an error of judgement on my part.

‘I was invited to speak on behalf of a political candidate in a personal capacity and used “I”, “me”, “teacher” for this reason, rather than “we”, “the board”, etc.

‘However, on reflection I do understand how filming in front of Fratton Park and mentioning my connection to the candidate via the PST could blur those lines to the viewer.

‘Regrettably, this gave the impression to some that it was the PST, rather than me as an individual, who was endorsing a political candidate. To be clear, it is not - the PST is apolitical.

‘It is fair and right for people to call this out - I should have been mindful of how this could be seen and acted with more care and thought.

‘I’d like to apologise to my colleagues on the PST board and to all our members for this error of judgement.’

Martin has been a member of the Trust board since July 2022, and is also chair of Portsmouth Labour Party, a Pompey season-ticket holder, and a teacher.

She is running against Mordaunt, who was selected Portsmouth North MP in the 2010 General Election and strongly backed the Trust in their fight to take over Pompey in 2013.

Vass has served on the Trust board since 2017 and in November 2023 was named as successor to the long-serving Simon Colebrook as chairman.

In their X post on Monday night, PFC Coalition, who were behind the January 2023 plane protest against Tornante’s ownership of the club, criticised Vass.

It stated: ‘Totally unacceptable that the chair of the @PompeyTrust @donaldvass endorsing a politician during a GE under the PST banner. He should resign immediately.’