Opening a can of worms, ( Hallett on Argyle finances)

Plymouth Argyle are still not operating on a financially sustainable basis, according to majority owner and chairman Simon Hallett.

That remains the goal for the United States-based businessman, who took over control of the League One club from James Brent last August.

Extra revenue from the redeveloped £6.5 million Mayflower Grandstand at Home Park, which is scheduled to be completed late in 2019, is one of the keys to that aim.

Hallett admitted he ‘does not mind investing money’ in Argyle but believes it is important the club can eventually support itself.

The 63-year-old made his comments when confirming he had talked to manager Derek Adams about his playing budget for the 2019/20 season.

Hallett told Plymouth Live: “I have told him what I’m going to propose to the board, which is Friday afternoon, and I have got dinner with him (on Thursday night), so he now knows.

“Our goal is to be financially sustainable, and we are still not financially sustainable.

I’m still putting money into the club. We are not operating on a financially sustainable basis, and probably won’t be next year.

“We have still got to finalise the budget, but that’s the goal. We are not quite there yet.”

Asked about his continued investment, Hallett said: “It’s not the money I mind. My goal is for the club to be financially sustainable.

“I don’t mind investing money, but I really want the club to be financially sustainable.

“I’m 63, I’m mortal, if I get hit by a bus and we have got deficits the club is in trouble again, and we cannot have that happen.

“I’m a steward of this club and I’m not going to be around forever.

“I want to make sure that the club is in a better position when it passes from me than it was when I took it on, just as it was for James.

“James took it on in a mess and he passed it on in a fairly healthy position and I want to pass it on in a very healthy position. That’s the goal.”

Hallett has promised more transparency over the club’s finances in the future but that does not include any details about the manager’s playing budget.

He said: “If you take the argument to logical extremes, if we announce that his budget is quadrupled all of a sudden the price of players goes up.

“I’m all in favour of more transparency, but I think I have been pretty clear that we are not going to be so transparent that we are going to say the budget is either up or down.”

The playing budget made available to Adams for next season is likely to be be a factor in whether Argyle can retain the services of Graham Carey and Ruben Lameiras.

The talented attacking duo are both out of contract at the end of this term and are almost certain to attract interest from other clubs.

Asked whether he thought Carey and Lameiras would stay at Argyle, Hallett replied: “I don’t know. I hope so, but I don’t want to prejudice anything that Derek thinks.

“Like fans, I have got to assume that there are certain key players, subject to price and subject to what we could get elsewhere in the market place, that Derek would want to keep.

“But I have been through this now for three seasons. It’s not just what we want.

“We can’t just go to a player in March and say ‘We want you, here is a contract offer’ because quite often they say ‘Not interested, I’m playing football at the moment, I will speak to you in June’.

“The fans sometimes seem to think that it’s entirely at our discretion, and it’s not.

“It’s not just a question of setting a budget and Derek being able to figure out what he wants to offer player X or player Y.

“It’s whether the player is interested in talking, and quite rightly if I was a player on fire, scoring goals, very confident about the last few games, I would say ‘I’m going to wait.’

“So we will have to see what happens I’m afraid,” added the Pilgrims’ chairman.

The rather depressing truth is that in the modern era, any club that sets its stall out to be run in a financially sustainable manner, will inevitably almost always be starved of any success.

Argyles zenith of glory looks destined to be confined to a fourth division promotion season every so often. For 90% of our entire history we’ve been a 2nd/3rd tier yo-yo club. That balance has shifted somewhat in recent times having had our first ever foray to the fourth tier in the 90’s.

Without active investment to match that of the majority of our rivals, it’s bucket rattling and division 4 football that is in danger of becoming the rule rather than the exception.

2012 - 89th - 6915
2013 - 89th - 7095
2014 - 78th - 7304
2015 - 75th - 7536
2016 - 73rd - 9052
2017 - 70th - 8652
2018 - 51st - 10513
2019 - 56th - 9513 (so far)

There you have the bare post-admin figures that define our progress in the last 7 and a bit seasons in terms of finishing league position and average home attendance.

We have seen steady, if unspectacular, progress up through the football leagues and this has seen ever-growing attendances until this season when we have been Grandstandless.

I don't have the season ticket prices to hand but in the same period they have increased.

So after 7 years of Brent's tight stewardship, something not even his supporters would disagree with, an Argyle team operating at a historically unremarkable level is currently, after all we have endured, still unsustainable.

I think we deserve a rather prompt and explicit explanation as to why this is the case from the club.

It is a complete smokescreen if we try to blame it on the playing budget because wage levels are set according to SCMP and, we have been told, we aren't even near to hitting that limit.

So the unsustainable spending is not going towards the team and has not gone towards the team for the last 7 years.

Can anybody think of anything that currently might be haemorrhaging money unexpectedly at Argyle?

What's missing from Sis sustainable club is fans believing the business plan is valid and buying tickets. This hasn't happened, we got promoted and now the wage bill has outstripped the number of fans that believe the model is working. If we had signed some decent players last summer and we're in the top six all season you'd be seeing crowds of twelve or fourteen thousand by now, if we were looking at challenging for the top two the home games now would all be sellouts. That starts becoming sustainable. Our near glory in the Ollie days was driven by large crowds, not leg shagging prawn munchers and it allowed us to sign some decent players. We are operating at fifty percent capacity, the onus is not on the football and the fans know it. That's what's not sustainable.

Earwegoagain wrote:

What's missing from Sis sustainable club is fans believing the business plan is valid and buying tickets. This hasn't happened, we got promoted and now the wage bill has outstripped the number of fans that believe the model is working. If we had signed some decent players last summer and we're in the top six all season you'd be seeing crowds of twelve or fourteen thousand by now, if we were looking at challenging for the top two the home games now would all be sellouts. That starts becoming sustainable. Our near glory in the Ollie days was driven by large crowds, not leg shagging prawn munchers and it allowed us to sign some decent players. We are operating at fifty percent capacity, the onus is not on the football and the fans know it. That's what's not sustainable.

The capacity of the Horseshoe is 12,600. Averaging 12-14,000 over the season this season was never going to be arithmetically possible.

The attendance for Holloway's last home game was 11,222. Our recent home game v Luton saw a crowd of 11,081 turn up.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

So after 7 years of Brent's tight stewardship, something not even his supporters would disagree with, an Argyle team operating at a historically unremarkable level is currently, after all we have endured, still unsustainable.

I think we deserve a rather prompt and explicit explanation as to why this is the case from the club.

Then instead of moaning to us..  Why don't you take up Brent's personal offer to you to have coffee with him and ask him directly?  He better than anyone should be able to explain.

It's a disgrace that you haven't done it already, considering you are on the board of the AFT.

If He has agreed to a meeting and that there's no nda to sign why haven't you taken ~Brent up on his offer, you have a better chance of finding out these answers then we have,

Jethro wrote:

If He has agreed to a meeting and that there's no nda to sign why haven't you taken ~Brent up on his offer, you have a better chance of finding out these answers then we have,

To clarify.. Brent didn't "agree" to a meeting. He offered one after being questioned by SFD at a fans forum.

Why SFD hasn't taken up the offer after all his criticism of Brent speaks volumes.

If this quote isn’t damnation by faint praise I don’t know what is.

Sustainable Si wrote:

“James took it on in a mess and he passed it on in a fairly healthy position

Not as healthy as his profit on the land at HHP?

If the current set up is still not sustainable just exactly who has been pumping money into the club prior to November 1st when Hallett took over.

Absolute bollacks.

So another clear out and intake of rejects, crocks, journey men etc etc for the 2019/20 season, and likely (if we stay in L1) another relegation battle.

The new Argyle tactic to raise cash from fans..

I'm actually quite encouraged by what Hallett is saying. He's being quite frank about where we are. He also sounds prepared to invest but makes the salient point that if it's just money going into a black hole then when he has to/wants to get out, he could leave Argyle in the mire again. Why would he want risk being head of Stapes and Co. Mk II?

It's a misnomer that our flirt with the Championship play-offs was fuelled by large home gates, as SFD has pointed out. The reality is we had a moment in time where Holloway inherited some decent players and managed to build on that with some good signings, at bargain prices. We were a small fish in a big pond, even back then. Our record signing is still 500K and deals at that level were enough to spiral us into administration, despite transfer income of 6-7 million (Halmosi, Norris, Gosling, Ebhey-Blake etc).

It seems clear there was some creative accounting and subterfuge under Brent but Hallett should be given the chance to see if he can drive his project forward. Historically speaking, the money he is putting into the club is not insignificant and whilst it isn't enough to propel us to compete with the likes of Villa, Leeds, Boro etc in the Championship (there are some massive clubs in that division now), it has an even chance of making us an upper tier League One side, going for the next level up....and if we're becoming a more professionally run club and it appears we're getting our act together, who's to say it won't attract more investment?

If it's all gone tits-up by the end of next season, fair enough - but the new regime deserves at least a bit of rope with which to hang itself.

Key to everything having a chance in the short-term is staying in this division and then Adams presiding over a better start to next season.

Angry wrote:

The new Argyle tactic to raise cash from fans..

Waiting for the photoshop of Hallett as Geldof now....

But its as we thought, something wasn't quite right with how Mr 30% ran the club,

At least Hallett is prepared to invest,

Just hopefully if not with a transfer fee, Enough money to nail down Ruben, Freddie and Carey to long term contracts,
So we can build a team around them to hopefully have a chance at climbing the league,

Might not be perfect but throwing good money after bad will just feck us up further,
Hallett just seems to be trying to make the best of the fecked up position , Mr 30% has put him in,

Manager with too much power seemingly unsackable etc,

If as I've said Hallett gives enough budget to nail vital players down to long term deals,
Has the balls to do something if we start our season how we have the past couple, eg only turn up around christmas,

Then we might be heading in the right direction,

After 7 years of aimless, just got lucky pandering to the janners bullshit

Gates over 9,000 - third division wage bill, not sustainable?

all jokes aside if under this board Argyle are still not sustainable after 7/8 years of cutting every corner known to man and income coming in with big bonuses now and from transfers and tv games and such then can the board just admit that they cant do anything with the club but run it into the ground and put the club up for sale now.

who knows they might even get a buyer or two interested in buying the clusterfuck mark 2 off them aswell ad do a better job of it.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Earwegoagain wrote:

What's missing from Sis sustainable club is fans believing the business plan is valid and buying tickets. This hasn't happened, we got promoted and now the wage bill has outstripped the number of fans that believe the model is working. If we had signed some decent players last summer and we're in the top six all season you'd be seeing crowds of twelve or fourteen thousand by now, if we were looking at challenging for the top two the home games now would all be sellouts. That starts becoming sustainable. Our near glory in the Ollie days was driven by large crowds, not leg shagging prawn munchers and it allowed us to sign some decent players. We are operating at fifty percent capacity, the onus is not on the football and the fans know it. That's what's not sustainable.

The capacity of the Horseshoe is 12,600. Averaging 12-14,000 over the season this season was never going to be arithmetically possible.

The attendance for Holloway's last home game was 11,222. Our recent home game v Luton saw a crowd of 11,081 turn up.

Even selling out at 12,600 every week gives us a lot of extra cash, the truth is fans are not buying into the belief, I don't blame them.

Angry wrote:

all jokes aside  if under this board Argyle are still not sustainable after 7/8 years of cutting every corner known to man and income coming in with big bonuses now and from transfers and tv games and such then can the board just admit that they cant do anything with the club but run it into the ground and put the club up for sale now.

who knows they might even get a buyer or two interested in buying the clusterfuck mark 2 off them aswell ad do a better job of it.

Maybe that's what we have with Hallett,and maybe he's finding out things that weren't right under brent and having to fix them,

The main point is where the feck was the money thats left a hole in the budget going, cause sure as shits brown brent wasn't putting it into the grandstand,

It does look like we was a cash cow for saltrock etc,

Jethro wrote:

Angry wrote:

all jokes aside  if under this board Argyle are still not sustainable after 7/8 years of cutting every corner known to man and income coming in with big bonuses now and from transfers and tv games and such then can the board just admit that they cant do anything with the club but run it into the ground and put the club up for sale now.

who knows they might even get a buyer or two interested in buying the clusterfuck mark 2 off them aswell ad do a better job of it.

Maybe that's what we have with Hallett,and maybe he's finding out things that weren't right under brent and having to fix  them,

The main point is where the feck was the money thats left a hole in the budget going, cause sure as shits brown brent wasn't putting it into the grandstand,

It does look like we was a cash cow for saltrock etc,

...........and the rest of his catastropic crumbling empire

The penny has even started to drop with the thick leg shagger Postey even starting to realise there's something ammis, shame he ignored it for seven years on Brent's watch,


The warning signs were in evidence after a poor January transfer window and it looks like any spare cash is being diverted towards completion of the refurbished grandstand.

I realise we have overheads, the Academy needs funding and maintenance of Home Park etc but we've had years of virtually no money following administration while we paid off historic debts, while now we are virtually free of the financial shambles of 2011.

The last available accounts show we made a small profit of £32,000, last seasons average home attendance was higher than our last season in the Championship in 2010 and this seasons average home attendance might eclipse 10,000, it's currently the 7th highest in League One.
Only in the Premier League do attendances not matter.

Why are we not financially sustainable?

There's no way we should return to spending money we don't have, we spent 87% of turnover on player wages in 2009 which killed us but there is scope within League One rules to spend up to 60% of turnover on player wages so how close are we to that limit?
Is there wiggle room to improve the player budget so that better players can be enticed to Argyle?

The fans are certainly backing the club through the turnstiles but the standard of player signed last summer and the lack of activity in January doesn't reflect that?
Is that Adams' choice or lack of a good budget?

Edit: I've just read Graham’s Brief Synopsis (Sponsored by Bromleigh House Ltd) of the Fans Forum and it seems the cost of the refurbishment of the grandstand has jumped up another £1m to £7.5m, so that explains a lot about where the money is going.

harvetheslayer wrote:

Jethro wrote:

Angry wrote:

all jokes aside  if under this board Argyle are still not sustainable after 7/8 years of cutting every corner known to man and income coming in with big bonuses now and from transfers and tv games and such then can the board just admit that they cant do anything with the club but run it into the ground and put the club up for sale now.

who knows they might even get a buyer or two interested in buying the clusterfuck mark 2 off them aswell ad do a better job of it.

Maybe that's what we have with Hallett,and maybe he's finding out things that weren't right under brent and having to fix  them,

The main point is where the feck was the money thats left a hole in the budget going, cause sure as shits brown brent wasn't putting it into the grandstand,

It does look like we was a cash cow for saltrock etc,

...........and the rest of his catastropic crumbling empire

thats my thinking around what Hallett has said,

that we need to be a cash cow for the club, not a cash cow to prop up a crumbling empire else where,

We will just have to see what the next couple of years brings because if the hole we need to plug , was the money going to saltrock etc, we should be pretty much set, but we've seen how hard it is to unpick the finances f the club given the info brent put out there, so wh knows what else is hidden away that Hallett might find in the future,

Earwegoagain wrote:

The penny has even started to drop with the thick leg shagger Postey even starting to realise there's something ammis, shame he ignored it for seven years on Brent's watch,


The warning signs were in evidence after a poor January transfer window and it looks like any spare cash is being diverted towards completion of the refurbished grandstand.

I realise we have overheads, the Academy needs funding and maintenance of Home Park etc but we've had years of virtually no money following administration while we paid off historic debts, while now we are virtually free of the financial shambles of 2011.

The last available accounts show we made a small profit of £32,000, last seasons average home attendance was higher than our last season in the Championship in 2010 and this seasons average home attendance might eclipse 10,000, it's currently the 7th highest in League One.
Only in the Premier League do attendances not matter.

Why are we not financially sustainable?

There's no way we should return to spending money we don't have, we spent 87% of turnover on player wages in 2009 which killed us but there is scope within League One rules to spend up to 60% of turnover on player wages so how close are we to that limit?
Is there wiggle room to improve the player budget so that better players can be enticed to Argyle?

The fans are certainly backing the club through the turnstiles but the standard of player signed last summer and the lack of activity in January doesn't reflect that?
Is that Adams' choice or lack of a good budget?

Edit: I've just read Graham’s Brief Synopsis (Sponsored by Bromleigh House Ltd) of the Fans Forum and it seems the cost of the refurbishment of the grandstand has jumped up another £1m to £7.5m, so that explains a lot about where the money is going.

Who'd have thought?

More lowering expectation bollox from the new Brent, if he cant run a third division club with ten thousand fans paying top whack for tickets plus top whack for drinks and shit food then sell the club  to someone who can.

I’m sure he might consider it if there were buyers jostling to buy us, haven’t heard of any, have you ?