Q and A review

Indeed pat lets not forget auctioning & charideee to

Could somebody that went or even asked a question tell me what was asked of Brent that made him so angsty? I understand it was about the percentage of turnover paid to the budget? Was the question answered at all?

Or as Argyledad says on JBSOTI it was about 106 funding, the para below is taken from the web regarding section 106 funding it would appear to be the sort of thing that pays for Derriford/Seaton barracks roadworks via council tax money.

These agreements are a way of delivering or addressing matters that are necessary to make a development acceptable in planning terms. They can be used to support the provision of services and infrastructure, such as highways, recreational facilities, education, health and affordable housing.

Maybe well never know I for one have no intention of watching the video.

On a couple of occasions they mentioned that Akkeron was picking up the costs of the planning application and that this was saving the club money. S106 was mentioned a couple of times in this regard and was referred to once as a tax.

I asked pretty much explicitly the question you raise along these lines:

"You have referred more than once to the S106 costs and once called it a tax, which it isn't, so how much of the accrued S106 cost is attributable solely to the grandstand part of the development?"

To which the answer was:

"S106 isn't a tax, no, I was trying to describe it in simple terms. The S106 costs are incurred by the hybrid development as a whole."

I interpreted that as none of the S106 costs being attributable to the grandstand.

I see he avoided the true meaning of the question around what benefit HHP will have to Plymouth Argyle football club.

I also asked about the 60% in a roundabout way.

They'd already said that they would never let on as to their spending and neither would anybody else but there was boardroom tittle tattle that they seemed to value highly. They also said that our budget was "mid-table" in terms of the league.

I pointed out that our attendances were among the best in the league, that our prices were among the highest, that there was all the unbudgeted revenue from last year and that it wasn't really fair to only talk of expenditure whilst omitting to mention income... So bearing all of that in mind how can they possibly know that our budget was "mid-table" and even if it was shouldn't it be higher?

To which the reply was that the club had the figures for last season which they were basing the "mid-table" comment on, that the BBC report was grossly misleading and Brent then went on at some length about Exeter being more expensive - at which point I pointed out that we weren't competing with them.

Yea Man wrote:

I see he avoided the true meaning of the question around what benefit HHP will have to Plymouth Argyle football club.

That was the very first question asked by a woman that I didn't know.

If you want the answer to that watch the vid - it is right at the start.

And, no, it wasn't clear to me from the answer, beyond the sharing of costs hardly any of which are generated by the grandstand, how the club benefits.

Good attempt Frank but the same old deceit and obfuscation. Ever since defence head honcho John Knott hilariously pulled off his TV microphone and stormed off when he didn't like the questions, any agreed Q and A format has become more and more a "corporate" opportunity to deploy smoke, mirrors and these days outright lies.
The guilty have always lied when asked direct questions. Why would that change, especially when the procedure is voluntary.

Q...."Are you a very very bad person ?"
A.... "No, my family adore me. I love animals and do lots for charidee"

Respect to Frank for turning up and asking some decent questions.

Thank you, Les.

beesrus wrote:

Good attempt Frank but the same old deceit and obfuscation. Ever since defence head honcho John Knott hilariously pulled off his TV microphone and stormed off when he didn't like the questions, any agreed Q and A format has become more and more a "corporate" opportunity to deploy smoke, mirrors and these days outright lies.
The guilty have always lied when asked direct questions. Why would that change, especially when the procedure is voluntary.

Q...."Are you a very very bad person ?"
A.... "No, my family adore me. I love animals and do lots for charidee"

All I can do is ask the questions.

Both of those I asked arose directly from what was said from the stage.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

On a couple of occasions they mentioned that Akkeron was picking up the costs of the planning application and that this was saving the club money. S106 was mentioned a couple of times in this regard and was referred to once as a tax.

I asked pretty much explicitly the question you raise along these lines:

"You have referred more than once to the S106 costs and once called it a tax, which it isn't, so how much of the accrued S106 cost is attributable solely to the grandstand part of the development?"

To which the answer was:

"S106 isn't a tax, no, I was trying to describe it in simple terms. The S106 costs are incurred by the hybrid development as a whole."

I interpreted that as none of the S106 costs being attributable to the grandstand.

I would also say well done for taking the time, I'm even more confused about s106 now, shorely it's a grant to the project developer and not a tax?

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I also asked about the 60% in a roundabout way.

They'd already said that they would never let on as to their spending and neither would anybody else but there was boardroom tittle tattle that they seemed to value highly. They also said that our budget was "mid-table" in terms of the league.

I pointed out that our attendances were among the best in the league, that our prices were among the highest, that there was all the unbudgeted revenue from last year and that it wasn't really fair to only talk of expenditure whilst omitting to mention income... So bearing all of that in mind how can they possibly know that our budget was "mid-table" and even if it was shouldn't it be higher?

To which the reply was that the club had the figures for last season which they were basing the "mid-table" comment on, that the BBC report was grossly misleading and Brent then went on at some length about Exeter being more expensive - at which point I pointed out that we weren't competing with them.

I think the question about he budget should have been phrased like this, "do Argyle spend the sixty percent of club turnover on the playing budget?"
A bit harder to wriggle out of, we all know we don't pay the full sixty it's obvious to anyone but the social climbers but any waffle other than a straight yes would make it obvious.

It's neither of those things.

S106 is additional work that may be required to enable the proposed development. Could be anything at all. As an example to get more parking spaces in the P&R car park the lines might need re-configuring and re-painting - whatever that costs would be a S106 cost.

It is not a tax but it is paid to the council. It's more like an associated fee. Or sweetener if you are rather more cynical about it. If you were downright hostile it might be thought of as hush money or a bribe. Baksheesh, maybe?

Except those pejorative terms suggest some sort of illegality and chicanery whereas S106 charges are completely open and above board.

Earwegoagain wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I also asked about the 60% in a roundabout way.

They'd already said that they would never let on as to their spending and neither would anybody else but there was boardroom tittle tattle that they seemed to value highly. They also said that our budget was "mid-table" in terms of the league.

I pointed out that our attendances were among the best in the league, that our prices were among the highest, that there was all the unbudgeted revenue from last year and that it wasn't really fair to only talk of expenditure whilst omitting to mention income... So bearing all of that in mind how can they possibly know that our budget was "mid-table" and even if it was shouldn't it be higher?

To which the reply was that the club had the figures for last season which they were basing the "mid-table" comment on, that the BBC report was grossly misleading and Brent then went on at some length about Exeter being more expensive - at which point I pointed out that we weren't competing with them.

I think the question about he budget should have been phrased like this, "do Argyle spend the sixty percent of club turnover on the playing budget?"
A bit harder to wriggle out of, we all know we don't pay the full sixty it's obvious to anyone but the social climbers but any waffle other than a straight yes would make it obvious.

There was no point asking it that way because they had already said they did not spend the full 60% on the club budget.

It was also suggested that if a club did spend 60% on the team then it would would be unsustainable and the club would be running at a loss. If any of our competitors do spend 60% then they must either be subsidised in some other way or be losing money.

I did the best I could. It is difficult to phrase questions in the flesh as carefully as you might when at a keyboard; here you have time to reflect as you go along but when there it is more difficult.

For instance was the "mid-table" in terms of an absolute cash amount or a percentage of turnover? That wasn't made clear and my question was long enough as it was without cramming that in somewhere (not that it occurred to me at the time).

And "thank, you" to you too. Should have said that right away.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I also asked about the 60% in a roundabout way.

They'd already said that they would never let on as to their spending and neither would anybody else but there was boardroom tittle tattle that they seemed to value highly. They also said that our budget was "mid-table" in terms of the league.

I pointed out that our attendances were among the best in the league, that our prices were among the highest, that there was all the unbudgeted revenue from last year and that it wasn't really fair to only talk of expenditure whilst omitting to mention income... So bearing all of that in mind how can they possibly know that our budget was "mid-table" and even if it was shouldn't it be higher?

To which the reply was that the club had the figures for last season which they were basing the "mid-table" comment on, that the BBC report was grossly misleading and Brent then went on at some length about Exeter being more expensive - at which point I pointed out that we weren't competing with them.

I think the question about he budget should have been phrased like this, "do Argyle spend the sixty percent of club turnover on the playing budget?"
A bit harder to wriggle out of, we all know we don't pay the full sixty it's obvious to anyone but the social climbers but any waffle other than a straight yes would make it obvious.

There was no point asking it that way because they had already said they did not spend the full 60% on the club budget.

It was also suggested that if a club did spend 60% on the team then it would would be unsustainable and the club would be running at a loss. If any of our competitors do spend 60% then they must either be subsidised in some other way or be losing money.

I did the best I could. It is difficult to phrase questions in the flesh as carefully as you might when at a keyboard; here you have time to reflect as you go along but when there it is more difficult.

For instance was the "mid-table" in terms of an absolute cash amount or a percentage of turnover? That wasn't made clear and my question was long enough as it was without cramming that in somewhere (not that it occurred to me at the time).

And "thank, you" to you too. Should have said that right away.

No Thank you, and whilst I'm here can I thank James for saving the club ect....I'm not trying to be critical and it's all a moot point as you say as nothing really ever gets answered.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

It was also suggested that if a club did spend 60% on the team then it would would be unsustainable and the club would be running at a loss. If any of our competitors do spend 60% then they must either be subsidised in some other way or be losing money.

This above bit of nonsense stands out for me, whether it was Brent or someone else who said it. The 60% rule was purposefully put there to STOP clubs getting into debt. Having taken all that trouble to set a limit, is Brent or whoever really suggesting the limit put forward by the EFL encourages spiralling debt or cheating in one form or another. Ludicrous, and this comment really does say so much about the thinking at Home Park and clearly puts their property investment, "admin expenses" and scoffing, no doubt, above the football product, compared to the EFL thinking. Far better to spend your turnover on lubberly property assets eh Jim ? Let's get the value of real estate soaring again eh ? Old habits die hard. Would have thought he had learned his lesson about real estate gambling at Citibubble, but apparently not.
Who is this clown with his business record to lecture others and a 150 year old league about the economics of football ?

Well the 60% is a limit not a target. I think the real limit is actually 55% and the extra 5% is leeway.

It's all a bit moot when we don't know what 100% is, what other costs are and so on.

It certainly appears that we are being unnecessarily parsimonious without obvious good reason but we just don't know, do we?

Maybe all is perfectly reasonable and we're barking up the wrong tree but the club brings that on itself by being so coy about letting us know anything at all?

If the club was open and transparent then all such questions would drop away. Any suspicion here is self-inflicted.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Well the 60% is a limit not a target. I think the real limit is actually 55% and the extra 5% is leeway.

It's all a bit moot when we don't know what 100% is, what other costs are and so on.

It certainly appears that we are being unnecessarily parsimonious without obvious good reason but we just don't know, do we?

Maybe all is perfectly reasonable and we're barking up the wrong tree but the club brings that on itself by being so coy about letting us know anything at all?

If the club was open and transparent then all such questions would drop away. Any suspicion here is self-inflicted.

I think we do know and the devil is in the detail, if Argyle were paying even the 55% then Brent would be telling us all the time, "we are paying 55% of turnover so anything above that would be illegal, what more can we do?" Instead we get waffle, the real question is "how much below 55% turnover are we paying towards the playing budget?" Not that he'd answer that either. My gut feeling is that we pay around 40% which would put us on a similar standing to a less well supported club paying the 55% and our legue position and signing record back that argument up.

Agree with the above, there can be no denying that the club is run on a shoestring, comparable to income. Bet Green Jim can't wait to get stuck into the transfer market during the January window

Earwegoagain wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Well the 60% is a limit not a target. I think the real limit is actually 55% and the extra 5% is leeway.

It's all a bit moot when we don't know what 100% is, what other costs are and so on.

It certainly appears that we are being unnecessarily parsimonious without obvious good reason but we just don't know, do we?

Maybe all is perfectly reasonable and we're barking up the wrong tree but the club brings that on itself by being so coy about letting us know anything at all?

If the club was open and transparent then all such questions would drop away. Any suspicion here is self-inflicted.

I think we do know and the devil is in the detail, if Argyle were paying even the 55% then Brent would be telling us all the time, "we are paying 55% of turnover so anything above that would be illegal, what more can we do?" Instead we get waffle, the real question is "how much below 55% turnover are we paying towards the playing budget?" Not that he'd answer that either. My gut feeling is that we pay around 40% which would put us on a similar standing to a less well supported club paying the 55% and our legue position and signing record back that argument up.

No argument here.

The gut feeling is certainly somewhat at variance to us having backed the manager to the hilt and the fact remains that we are amongst the most expensive to watch, have amongst the biggest crowds, have been running profitably for 3 years, had all that unexpected income last year and so on so we have no obvious excuse for being so stingy.

Them ducks just don't line up.

Earwegoagain wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Well the 60% is a limit not a target. I think the real limit is actually 55% and the extra 5% is leeway.

It's all a bit moot when we don't know what 100% is, what other costs are and so on.

It certainly appears that we are being unnecessarily parsimonious without obvious good reason but we just don't know, do we?

Maybe all is perfectly reasonable and we're barking up the wrong tree but the club brings that on itself by being so coy about letting us know anything at all?

If the club was open and transparent then all such questions would drop away. Any suspicion here is self-inflicted.

I think we do know and the devil is in the detail, if Argyle were paying even the 55% then Brent would be telling us all the time, "we are paying 55% of turnover so anything above that would be illegal, what more can we do?" Instead we get waffle, the real question is "how much below 55% turnover are we paying towards the playing budget?" Not that he'd answer that either. My gut feeling is that we pay around 40% which would put us on a similar standing to a less well supported club paying the 55% and our legue position and signing record back that argument up.

I believe that DA suggested 'similar' but has clearly now been instructed to keep his mouth shut. The only 'evidence' we have is that only Carey is on good wages and a two year contract, and the Frenchman is probs on a decent screw. The early season form, ill discipline and rumours of the likes of Bradly being interested in joining Luton, suggest to me that money and security are worries for several 'senior' players, in addition to the long hauls to away matches.

Earwegoagain wrote:

.

I think the question about he budget should have been phrased like this, "do Argyle spend the sixty percent of club turnover on the playing budget?"
A bit harder to wriggle out of, we all know we don't pay the full sixty it's obvious to anyone but the social climbers but any waffle other than a straight yes would make it obvious.

The question that Hallett answered was asked by me in the following manner via email to Rick Cowdery

Just having a few thoughts while lying around on my sun lounger and it's my understanding that due to the Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP) - the Financial Fair Play framework that limits the amount a club can spend on wages as a proportion of turnover at 60% for League One.

Could you please tell us the percentage of turnover at Argyle that is going on player wages?

If it's not at 60%, why not?

The following was also asked:

The internet is awash in rumours that the club is already paying down Simon and Jane Hallet's loan and therefore wasting money as the work at Home Park is not ready to go ahead. Can you confirm if that is the case and if so, how much has been paid?


Hallet's answer refutes the ridiculous claim put forward by SFD that Argyle were already paying interest on the loan.

Tringreen wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Well the 60% is a limit not a target. I think the real limit is actually 55% and the extra 5% is leeway.

It's all a bit moot when we don't know what 100% is, what other costs are and so on.

It certainly appears that we are being unnecessarily parsimonious without obvious good reason but we just don't know, do we?

Maybe all is perfectly reasonable and we're barking up the wrong tree but the club brings that on itself by being so coy about letting us know anything at all?

If the club was open and transparent then all such questions would drop away. Any suspicion here is self-inflicted.

I think we do know and the devil is in the detail, if Argyle were paying even the 55% then Brent would be telling us all the time, "we are paying 55% of turnover so anything above that would be illegal, what more can we do?" Instead we get waffle, the real question is "how much below 55% turnover are we paying towards the playing budget?" Not that he'd answer that either. My gut feeling is that we pay around 40% which would put us on a similar standing to a less well supported club paying the 55% and our legue position and signing record back that argument up.

I believe that DA suggested 'similar' but has clearly now been instructed to keep his mouth shut. The only 'evidence' we have is that only Carey is on good wages and a two year contract, and the Frenchman is probs on a decent screw. The early season form, ill discipline and rumours of the likes of Bradly being interested in joining Luton, suggest to me that money and security are worries for several 'senior' players, in addition to the long hauls to away matches.

Players coming here or deciding to play elsewhere is a good indicator of a clubs prospects, they know from there football playing mates up and down the country which clubs have a buzz about them, which are upwardly mobile and there they will go and ply their trade, money is a factor but the prospect of a promotion is a bigger factor and we are obviously lacking that.

Rickler wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

.

I think the question about he budget should have been phrased like this, "do Argyle spend the sixty percent of club turnover on the playing budget?"
A bit harder to wriggle out of, we all know we don't pay the full sixty it's obvious to anyone but the social climbers but any waffle other than a straight yes would make it obvious.

The question that Hallett answered was asked by me in the following manner via email to Rick Cowdery

Just having a few thoughts while lying around on my sun lounger and it's my understanding that due to the Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP) - the Financial Fair Play framework that limits the amount a club can spend on wages as a proportion of turnover at 60% for League One.

Could you please tell us the percentage of turnover at Argyle that is going on player wages?

If it's not at 60%, why not?

The following was also asked:

The internet is awash in rumours that the club is already paying down Simon and Jane Hallet's loan and therefore wasting money as the work at Home Park is not ready to go ahead.  Can you confirm if that is the case and if so, how much has been paid?


Hallet's answer refutes the ridiculous claim put forward by SFD that Argyle were already paying interest on the loan.

It's not that ridiculous a claim it all depends on the terms and conditions, it could have been a loan to the club and not tied to the development, it obviously has been earmarked just for the refurb which is a small piece of good news. What constantly knarks me is the hissiness used by the Club when answering questions like these, they have been constantly lacking in detail and treat us like mushrooms. As an aside nothing that Brent has done has filled me with confidence that he will always do the sensible or clever thing far from it.

Rickler wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

.

I think the question about he budget should have been phrased like this, "do Argyle spend the sixty percent of club turnover on the playing budget?"
A bit harder to wriggle out of, we all know we don't pay the full sixty it's obvious to anyone but the social climbers but any waffle other than a straight yes would make it obvious.

The question that Hallett answered was asked by me in the following manner via email to Rick Cowdery

Just having a few thoughts while lying around on my sun lounger and it's my understanding that due to the Salary Cost Management Protocol (SCMP) - the Financial Fair Play framework that limits the amount a club can spend on wages as a proportion of turnover at 60% for League One.

Could you please tell us the percentage of turnover at Argyle that is going on player wages?

If it's not at 60%, why not?

The following was also asked:

The internet is awash in rumours that the club is already paying down Simon and Jane Hallet's loan and therefore wasting money as the work at Home Park is not ready to go ahead.  Can you confirm if that is the case and if so, how much has been paid?


Hallet's answer refutes the ridiculous claim put forward by SFD that Argyle were already paying interest on the loan.

Here we go again...

Yet again.

Time for another SFD v Rickler thread, I guess. That's sure to sort it out and make it look like the blame is shared despite me having done NOTHING to provoke it.

Mods please make the necessary arrangements.

And please judge this to be a official complaint about the abuse that is sure to follow like it always has every other time. So many times. Twenty years or so now and counting.