Hypothetically – After James Brent

Well no chairman/owner stays forever.

Barrier 1
James Brent needs an Ice Rink
Plymouth Argyle Football Club needs HP and HHP

Solution 1
Buyer commits to building ice rink as part of Grandstand re-development.  James Brent is right, the commercial success of the club depends heavily on the Grandstand being re-developed.
This means no retail development, possibly a hotel as part of the Grandstand as Norwich, Sheffield United, West Ham and Chelsea for instance, no road around the back of the Lyndhurst.

Barrier 2
James Brent wants to sell to raise some money
Plymouth Argyle Football Club needs a backer who can meet James Brent’s asking price, cover the club debt commitment, and run the club in a commercially successful way.   A commercially successful club would never go into administration as they would be able to secure their debts against future income, like most Premiership clubs are able to do.

Solution 2
Unless you know a mystery billionaire closet Argyle fan, the fan base is the solution.  Whether you are looking at 4th Division Portsmouth or Barcelona the model works.  They don’t need to know how to run a business.
You raise the money (more on that later)
You put a management team in place: Football, Business and Commercial.
You put a steering group in place.  (A group of individuals committed to the future of the club who can offer business or football advice on an arm’s length voluntary basis.  For example a retired or semi retired accountant, a retired or semi-retired football league manager, a retired or semi-retired facilities manager).  There are plenty of examples of this sort of arrangement in the business world.
The steering group guide the management team.  They also advise on raising the funds, so the steering group has to come first, but in principle the funding comes from the fan base.  Off the top of my head I think that Portsmouth relied on 12 “significant” contributors and the rest comes from a significant number of small contributors.  We just need a rallying call.  This could come from the AFT, Mr Brent could be the catalyst and first donor for the win-win exit plan, or it could be someone/something else.  Answers on a post card.
Note: Contributors not investors.  The investment is in having a football club in Plymouth, and a football club that is aspiring to compete with Swansea and Burnley, not Newport and Accrington Stanley. Whilst remembering Tyhee Slim’s “Ghosts of Saturday”, ask the question........
How much is Argyle worth to you?

Yer darn tootin', Tooting!

ghosts of saturday was a vision of the future and we're living that future

So bascially fans got to cover any investment lining the owners pockets ?

Elias

Ghosts wasn't a vision it was a warning of what we would become if we carried on as we were.

No owner, that will always be the problem. Its radical, but we are talking a completely different financial model. As I have said it works elsewhere. In Germany and Spain it is the norm, and look at the state of football in those countries.

"Steering groups"..?

LOL. Enough said.

Tooting Green wrote:

Elias

Ghosts wasn't a vision it was a warning of what we would become if we carried on as we were.

So it was a vision then.

The problem with this is that all the intelligent supporters have been shoved out of the way by the superfans or ground down by the last 5-6 years of being dire and can't be bothered anymore.

Rickler wrote:

"Steering groups"..?

LOL.  Enough said.

Call it something else then.

If I understand the idea properly then the idea would be to have something akin to a board of governers rather like a school does. The governers take care of specific areas and are recruited/appointed with skill sets to suit. Maybe "Trustees" would be a better word.

Whatever. It's not the label that is important.

How else might we be able to break away from the property speculator Kagami/Gardner/Heaney/Brent axis and go back to being a proper football club representing the city and providing entertainment and opportunity for the wider community?

And if not this then what?

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Rickler wrote:

"Steering groups"..?

LOL.  Enough said.

Call it something else then.

If I understand the idea properly then the idea would be to have something akin to a board of governers rather like a school does. The governers take care of specific areas and are recruited/appointed with skill sets to suit. Maybe "Trustees" would be a better word.

Whatever. It's not the label that is important.

How else might we be able to break away from the property speculator Kagami/Gardner/Heaney/Brent axis and go back to being a proper football club representing the city and providing entertainment and opportunity for the wider community?

And if not this then what?

The simple answer is to follow the example of clubs like Portsmouth and Luton Town who have managed to successfully merge the supportive wealth of a group of high net worth individuals with the purposeful integration of supporter groups (mainly their respective Supporter Trusts) that allows them to have proper and authoritative influence on decision making at the football club.

The sort of governance you have advocated looks far too close to the Exeter City model which remains precariously close to collapse and incapable of future sustainability. Look at all the infighting there in the name of governance. Wycombe Wanderers soon saw the limitations of the model as a Football League club and actively sought external investment to survive.

How have Pompey and/or Luton done it then?

I would observe that failures could be used to rubbish any proposed model.

How did we get on when owned by high net worth individuals like McCauley, Gardner, Brent for example? McCauley took us down 2 divisions and up one, Gardner rode this cock horse to oblivion and Brent has so far notched the 2 worst final league positions in the club's entire history.

Every day the London Gazette is filled with PLCs and god knows what other sort of company that has failed. It doesn't mean they all will.

I dread to think what would happen if the Superfan 7 ever got ownership control at the Theatre of Schemes

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

How have Pompey and/or Luton done it then?

Look at the Pompey Trust and Trust in Luton websites. They will give a good insight of how integrated the supporters are within the club and how the clubs are embedded within the community. It is no accident that the two clubs are the best supported in League 2. Both have been achieved by working with the wealth of Fan based Consortiums (the eleven high net worth individuals in the case of Portsmouth and the Luton Town 2020 Ltd in the case of The Hatters). It is remarkable what both clubs have achieved in the face of greater adversity than we faced.

When are going to hear from Tina?

The council as freeholders of HHP could be a good ally to have, I know Tenpole isn't well regarded in these parts but council leaders come and go and we could end up with a real ally there. What mustnt be allowed to happen is for Brent to get his hands on the freehold and especially the extra piece of land.
Is that fiddling I can hear?

It will be interesting to see what Tudor Evans had to say to the Trust. Once he agrees the minutes that is.

I imagine a lot of what Tudor has to say will be governed by what he is asked?  I don't have high hopes in that regard.

What is it with all this "minute" stuff? What are the AFT afraid of? I can't see the press waiting for authorization from Tudor before they print anything.

The phrase 'hold on a minute' is taking on a whole new meaning as far as Argyle is concerned.

Fanzine anyone ?

The time wasting is a joke, any news the fans get is usually at least six weeks old.

Btw, welcome to Tooting. An interesting first contribution to the site. There is much for thought in what Graham has said as well.

Rickler wrote:

I imagine a lot of what Tudor has to say will be governed by what he is asked?  I don't have high hopes in that regard.

What is it with all this "minute" stuff? What are the AFT afraid of? I can't see the press waiting for authorization from Tudor before they print anything.

The phrase 'hold on a minute' is taking on a whole new meaning as far as Argyle is concerned.

Hot news was promised within a day or so, something really interesting sam said? two weeks later...............................

There needs to be some serious heckling going on inside that stadium towards the directors box at all home games until we get some proper clarity on the situation.

If the trust won't do it's job the support should take matters into it's own hands.

I live in hope......as always

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

I would observe that failures could be used to rubbish any proposed model.How did we get on when owned by high net worth individuals like McCauley, Gardner, Brent for example? McCauley took us down 2 divisions and up one, Gardner rode this cock horse to oblivion and Brent has so far notched the 2 worst final league positions in the club's entire history.

Every day the London Gazette is filled with PLCs and god knows what other sort of company that has failed. It doesn't mean they all will.

By the same token though,it could also be said that a successful Argyle and "high net worth individuals" [bit of a buzzphrase is that,prefer "minted twats" myself] aren't necessarily mutually exclusive,in spite of the failures of the above named.Plenty of other clubs have benefitted from the financial input of HNWI's in the past,in fact Argyle's most successful post war period came under Blindell,who was a HNWI-from what i've heard he could also be described as a twat as well but nonetheless Argyle did well under his chairmanship.I suppose you could say that finding 3 bad apples doesn't mean the whole barrel is rotten. Would there be any examples of trust run clubs apart from Exeter] where things have gone absolutely pear shaped [seems to be fruit analogy night]? Genuine question,i'm no expert in this matter.

I can't think of any examples of Trust run clubs where the wheels have come off altogether. It's arguable whether Exeter has gone pear shaped. They are obviously having a few problems at the moment but for a club of that size I don't think they are struggling any more than the majority of lower league clubs are or have been.

Nearly all Trust owned or partly owned clubs have resulted from clubs who have gone bust or into administration. Some are even phoenix clubs.

There are plenty of examples of "supporter owned" football clubs around the world. I recently found out that all football clubs in Argentina are supporter owed.

As for the period under Blindell, he did have one slight advantage. The football world hadn't gone completely money crazy and turned into greedy bastards.

Successful Trust-owned clubs?

Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich!