Why does it seem to be so hard to attract honest, upright leadership into running Football Clubs ? Maybe Premiership football with its oceans of Sky money pouring into top clubs and players pockets can be understood,although condoning it as inevitable surely is wrong. When you get to the also runs and unfortunately that includes Argyle, you would think that the possibility of attracting the dubious type of operator, would be less evident in club management. OK we can see that it can be the peripheral issues that entice the wrong sought of people into the ownership game. Without such enticements many a non-premiership club would have gone to the wall. Argyles lot is a bit of land development,maybe we should be saying thank goodness for that then. How do we learn to trust such leadership in our hour of need ? It does seem impossible when you think of recent Argyle history, and you know the names as well as me,so we won't dwell on them. The secrecy behind the present buyers and the lengths that they have gone too not to reveal their identity just creates mis-trust, After denial that he was involved,then being outed and challenged Kevin Heaney admits that he is an "advisor". Having lived in the south east for many years the name of Kevin Heaney is not a prominent name,although links with Truro were known. As the days go by his various dealings that come to light,some sounding iffy create a feeling of despair and you wonder how we have been allowed to get on this same old merry-go-round again. How could Guilfoyle allow us to be sold down that same old river again.
According to what's been stated publicly, neither the consortium nor Heaney nor indeed any ex shareholder of PAFC will be involved with the football club, except as arms length landlords. The football club will be led and owned by Peter Ridsdale. When we talk of secrecy, Mr. Ridsdale hasn't actually said what his intentions are for PAFC and indeed it's just as well we haven't been fed "Premier League in 5 years" hogwash. What he has said is that he did not set out with an intention to own PAFC and has stepped in purely out of a sense of public duty. That may or may not answer your question, dependent on your levels of cynicism. Time will tell.
Plymborn, look no further than my lot, an extremely well run club, the Chairman Peter Coates is a local lad made (very very) good and is a lifelong supporter, as is his family. Well run AND profitable (no debts) in the Premier League, unheard of eh!!, no really silly signings and no astronomical wages, all on a maximum capacity at the Brit of under 28,000 per home game. It can be done All the best, also to Joe - hope the bambino continues to prosper
Never in all my years have heard so much utter confusion, red tape and secrecy over a buyout, which really you would expect this to happen in government and high financial matters etc. But it had to happen at Argyle did'nt it! Anyway what happens on the development side it's between the PB and the City Council, that we cannot change so let them get on with it. All we need is to help and give support to PR and establish PAFC back in the Championship where we at least belong!
oldnickyb............we do know about well run clubs in the south west,in fact we got complimented for running one under Paul Stapleton not so long ago,how things can change when you move out of your depth ask Stapleton, but don't mention Toady in his presence.
notDistantGreen.........If Heaney is part of the bidders.......then he is our landlord...........just tell a tenant that his Landlord has no influence over their future,...........but duck when you tell them so. Peter Ridsdale doesn't come into ownership until the deal is finalized,so his plans thou on-going cannot be fully revealed until that moment.
Chelsea - Abramovich has alleged Mafia connections Blackburn - Chinese owners who have underworld connections Man Utd - owned by a somehow wealthy American who tied all his debts to the club totalling £700M Man City - Run by a sheikh who has used his money over three seasons to buy tantrum prone players who have only won 1 trophy and keep falling out. The list goes on... Based on the income of British football it is no surprise. Come to think of it, there are not many respectible businessmen anyway. LOL.
Man Utd - owned by people who as I understand it bought it in a straight forward leveraged purchase - they put in 20% and borrow 80% [or whatever] - which is absolutely standard financial practice. That's not at all the same as attaching unrelated debts to it. The same was true of Liverpool I think before their most recent change of ownership. I'm not trying to be pedantic [for once] - the difference is important. In a leveraged purchase, interest has to be paid at least on the 80%. The fans seem to think that's some kind of robbery but it's only demonstrating the well known fact that there is a cost of capital - ask anyone who has a mortgage. If there was true sanity, the other 20% would expect a return too. Too many fans live in that cloud cuckoo land where rich benefactors finance their football pleasure with never a thought where it comes from or how it gets paid back. Real life's not like that.
Todays Telegraph.......Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung has been arrested by police in Hong Kong on charges of money laundering. Thats something we can be very confident about in Plymouth......NO MONEY........NO LAUNDERING..........see there are some good points about being poorer than the church mouse...........we're squeaky clean............but that could all change with KH in town.
At the moment it´s more NO KIT.......NO TEAM.....NO LAUNDERY We are saving money left, right and centre at the moment at this rate we will be in the black in no time at all.
The biggest problem anyone has today is being able to tell the good guys from the bad guys. It is easy to say that there are no straight business people at the top end but that connot be totally true. There may not be many but there must be some. There are plenty who would bend the rules to breaking point if it suited their purpose but would not cross the line completely. Probably why they are rich and getting richer and we the great unwashed are not. My problem with these people is that I could not do what they do to other people without blinking. No matter how much money something made me I just could not live with doing it. Too many scruples is not good for you in business clearly so I will never make a business man. We have a problem in this part of the world. We have a few with pots of dosh but the trouble is they are not lifelong fans of Argyle. There is no way unless Dawson for example suddenly developed a passion that we are going to get one. We are not an attractive proposition for an overseas benefactor. Take Fulham as a prime example. Not that long ago they were in the bottom league with us. Look at them now. However they are an old established London club which was the immediate attraction. Capital City and a price to buy the club for that was not over the top at the time. Something you could chuck some money at and build it up into a successful outfit for all the self publicity you could wish for. Does that sound like Argyle to anyone? Not in m book it doesn't. This area is the forgotten land and it is not likely to become fashionable except to the aged and retiring anytime soon. High costs to live here and miles from the centre of the world universe. We may be fortunate to live in this part of the world but not in footballing terms unfortunately.
So NickyB, this life long fan Peter Coates must be a different Peter Coates to the one who walked away from the club when the going got tough in the late 90's and the debts were mounting.
Oh dear, very touchy arre we not? Yup Coates was run out of town by threats and abuse to his family, then we had the Icelandic fiasco. And yes, I like many others were very apprehensive about his return. Along with Pulis, I never was and am still not a Pulis fan. Anyhow Coates only had serious money the second time around after he sold his bookie shop Tony Waddington, now then!! Anyway, no intention of rubbing anything in, just replying to a post that implied that all teams in the Prem are run by crooks.
