Present Argyle situation - a scary read.

[X Isle]

Forgive the intrusion but I know a lot of you were interested in our plight, still it goes on and still it throws up new and imaginative ways to put us through the ringer.

For keen students of footballing murk and intruige this lengthy but very well put together article outlines our present situation. It was relief all round when the CVA was secured but no-one now is feeling very confident of the future ahead of us now............

Plymouth Argyle: The Club With The Unknown Owners Twohundredpercent

Chief amongst the concerns around the bidders anonymity is that it provides ideal cover to retreat from the purchase if they don't get the property development rights from the council. They intend to stay anoymous until June 14th but the fixtures are out on June 17th so they can walk away at the 59th minute of the 11th hour leaving no time for a new buyer process...........and leaving us somewhere in the non-league .

 

[Norman Potting]

Scary. What is in it for them, probably not a strong and secure future for Argyle,

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Will Plymouth council give permission to develop with the entail on the land?

 

[Icy Gull]

Having seen the land around Argyle's ground it seemed blindingly obvious that a consortium with something other than a football club in mind would be very interested if they could lever planning applications off the back of "saving" the club.

Worrying times if this is the case, even if they get the planning consents.

 

[Scoffers]

I was amazed when Ridsdale was brought in, I wouldn't trust him with my kids pocket money.

Having read the entire article, it smacks of alternative motives. It makes me sick thinking how some people would use a football club purely for their own, non-footballing ends. We've been there, of course, and it has taken is since 1997 to get back on track. I so hope this doesn't happen to Argyle who are a wonderful family club.

That administrator bloke sounds well dodgy too. What a mess. Good luck!

 

[Hotchilidog]

What a mess. Sadly the Football league and the FA desperately need to overhaul the regulations regarding people who wish to participate in their competitions. If you are not willing to to disclose your identity then you are not allowed to have anything to do with a football club, SIMPLES!

What a nightmare for Argyle fans....This situation beggars belief.

 

[Seagull Steve]

Horrible situation to be in. I really really hope it goes right for you the fans. Good luck, Argyle deserve our thoughts.

 

[X Isle]

Scary. What is in it for them, probably not a strong and secure future for Argyle,

Naively I was all in favour of buying the ground from the council while we were on the up, it stopped rent commitments and meant we could borrow against an asset. What it did though was start the debt creation process and attract vulture capitalists. Basically they stand to gain a piece of prime leisure real estate on which they can bolt cash generating enterprises. The Council which owns much of the land around the ground has already embarked on a 'Life centre' project, with swimming, diving and gym facilities, there's scope for a big community/commercial development up there.

There is a covenent which was originally worded that the site was for 'sporting' purposes but somehow down the years that changed to 'leisure'. Now Leisure covers a multitude of opportunities that 'sport' does not - gaming, cinemas, concert venues etc.........and i'm sure if you paid a lawyer enough you could even prove that the top leisure activity of the 21st century is shopping!.

There's a lot to gain and the peanuts they've 'invested' so far (some loose change to the staff) could easily be written off if they don't get a big share of it. The big bucks comes with the 'football share', due before we can compete next season. They've basically got a gun to the club's head in negotiations with the council "give us planning permissions or the club gets it". By having this mask of anonymity (and it's absolute, no-one has a clue) no-one would know who to blame when our twitching corpse fell to the floor in a pool of blood.

I think we've all long since accepted how shady big business is. But these are the proposed new owners of a City's football team, it's pride, it's passion. They are intending to be the custodians of the traditions and history of Plymouth Argyle and yet throughout the Admin process (early March) they have not even revealed themselves to the administrator, let alone entered into dialogue with or expressed their intentions to the fans. Even if they turn out NOT to be the previous owners in disguise, even if they announce grand plans, what faith can there be that anything will flow away from their pockets and into the football team when they've been acting like this.

It's a horrible mess with no happy ending in sight.

 

[beorhthelm]

If you are not willing to to disclose your identity then you are not allowed to have anything to do with a football club, SIMPLES!

the trouble is, its beyond what the FA/FL can legislate. this is around the ownership of the company, so is just the same as any other companyi n administration. The FA are not in a position to demand a change to the law so that prospective owner of holding company must be made public. whats needed is a grass roots concentrated campaign to get such a rule/law pushed through.

 

[Hotchilidog]

the trouble is, its beyond what the FA/FL can legislate. this is around the ownership of the company, so is just the same as any other companyi n administration. The FA are not in a position to demand a change to the law so that prospective owner of holding company must be made public. whats needed is a grass roots concentrated campaign to get such a rule/law pushed through.

I've heard that as a defence from the authorities for their continuing refusal to do anything about this situation. Whilst they may not be in a position to change the law they can change their own rules. Ultimately the FA and FL are free to set what ever entrance criteria they like over admittance to THEIR competitions. So even if for instance Plymouth/Leeds insist on having anonymous owners, the FL can say fair enough, but if you do that you'll have to go back to the beginning and start again, if you want participate in OUR competition, then we have to know who you are.

 

[severnside gull]

sad reading - you always hope that football clubs will be owned by people who love the game but it seems to rarely be the case. It used to be said that the quickest way to lose a fortune was to buy a football club. Certainly no longer true as owners with no cash are able to use clubs to borrow with administration as the ultimate fallback once they have banked as much as they can. It's just a quasi-legal form of money laundering and it will ultimately destroy the game.

If SKY were to go bust (not an eventuality you would ever rule out given its structuring and ownership) the whole of european football would collapse almost overnight with clubs unable to fund their borrowing or meet their contractual obligations.

Frightening.

 

[beorhthelm]

Ultimately the FA and FL are free to set what ever entrance criteria they like over admittance to THEIR competitions.

Its not a defence, its an observation of the way things are. the FA/FL have the fit and proper test (for what its worth), which requires you to know the owner. but they cant set criteria for who can bid on the holding company before they own it, they have no power over them, as they are not in their competition until they take ownership.

 

[Dominoid]

I honestly think that the existence of Home Park in the middle of the land is important to the value of the land. Let's be honest, it's not the best location in terms of transport links so it's not the sort of place you could stick a shopping centre for example (and with all the vacant lots in the centre and Drake Circus, there's no call for something like that) I really do think that the Irish consortium, whilst they DO have their own interests at heart, Argyle succeeding would always be important to them. Plus, there's no way they would have been given preferred bidder status if there was any doubt. I think the anonymity is to protect them from a PR angle should the council decide not to give planning permission.

 

[Hotchilidog]

Its not a defence, its an observation of the way things are. the FA/FL have the fit and proper test (for what its worth), which requires you to know the owner. but they cant set criteria for who can bid on the holding company before they own it, they have no power over them, as they are not in their competition until they take ownership.

Well that is indeed a very sad state of affairs.

 

[X Isle]

I honestly think that the existence of Home Park in the middle of the land is important to the value of the land. Let's be honest, it's not the best location in terms of transport links so it's not the sort of place you could stick a shopping centre for example (and with all the vacant lots in the centre and Drake Circus, there's no call for something like that) I really do think that the Irish consortium, whilst they DO have their own interests at heart, Argyle succeeding would always be important to them. Plus, there's no way they would have been given preferred bidder status if there was any doubt. I think the anonymity is to protect them from a PR angle should the council decide not to give planning permission.

But Dominoid, should they not give permissions for development opportunities in the city green lung the PB's will walk away. They've bought nothing yet and the day they intend to break cover and complete the sale is slap bang between the league AGM and the fixtures coming out. If they decide they don't fancy it at the last minute a new bidder will have no time to salvage a deal before the football league share needs paying. We will be outside the football league looking for a competition to slot into atthe last minute.

I know it's tempting to 'hope for the best' and wouldn't it be nice if it turned out to be just a quaint Irish media protection superstition all along...........but even if it was, WHY?. Their anonymity is much more watertight than a super injunction, it's positively vacuum sealed. No-one goes to that much trouble unless they've got something to hide and besides which they're touting to be the custodians of a football club, if they gave a single solitary sh1t about football they should be engaging and informing the customer base, giving them SOMETHING to encourage season ticket sales.

And they don't need Argyle to be a success on the pitch either. With a multi-million pound retail/leisure complex linked up to the life centre they only need us to maintain the veneer of being 'leisure based' to satisfy the covenant. They could feed us peanuts in terms of investment and just maintain us as a sideshow in the back garden of their money making palace.

 

[Dominoid]

Good points and I agree there's a lot to be worried about, but I really don't think Guillfoyle would allow it if there was even a modicum of doubt. And if it comes to the worst of it then there's always Brent as a backup option. I would be amazed if Guillfoyle wasn't still holding talks about contingency for if the Irish lot DO back out and if that does happen, I can see there being a plan ready to be put into place immediately in order to be ready for the start of the season. Whilst I certainly don't think there's any cause for celebration just yet, I think the risk of going out of business entirely is no longer present.

 

[X Isle]

Hot off the press.........

Plymouth Argyle | News | Latest News | Latest News | STATEMENT

Oooooooh f*ck

Didn't see that coming.......the proposed new owners didn't even TRY to PRETEND to give sh*t about football. We're to be divorced from the ground, become tennants in our ancestral homes and be owned lock, stock and barrel by one Peter Lucifer Ridsdale .

He's good though i'll give him that, I thought he was doing well to stave off the winding up orders with player sales, turns out he positioned himself nicely to take over, looks planned all along. Of course he claiming that he never sought this position........that's about as disingenuous as Ian Holloways comment that he 'happened to bump into' Milan Manderic in a service station on the M5 having resigned as our manager just hours before .

Sh1t is hitting the fan as we speak on our site.........

PASOTI View topic - Statement from administrators re Argyle and Ridsdale

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Ridsdale doesn't do anything unless he has an ulterior motive , so all that time Argyle fans thought he was there in a purely advisory capacity to stop the club from being wound up was all a bluff. Looks like the consortium are only interested in raking in a fortune by building a leisure/cinema complex plus massive supermarket and the council end up with a no cost sports centre.