Today's Guardian Article About Plymouth's Very Dire Financial Position

[C17BHA]

Full page article which doesn't make good reading. They are financially buggered and, reading between the lines, if no rich benefactor comes in pronto, they will go into liquidation - not just administration.

Impact of this is that us and Bournemouth will lose 6 points, Huddersfield 3 and Southampton have only played them once so far and lost. This will make the top of the table somewhat closer.

 

[Albion Dan]

Why wouldnt they go into admin? Sorry but the same was said about Pompey, I'll believe it when I see it, and surely they will be able to plod on for a month and a half till the season ends?

 

[Robot Chicken]

Shame our Tone can't lend them the money...if it keeps them afloat until the end of the season that will mean we don't lose the 6 points we won from them which might prove decisive!

 

[Kazenga <3]

Shame our Tone can't lend them the money...if it keeps them afloat until the end of the season that will mean we don't lose the 6 points we won from them which might prove decisive!

I was thinking this, can't he just chuck them a couple of mill to keep them going until may? Realistically I know that wouldn't and shouldn't happen but..

 

[philsussex]

Shame our Tone can't lend them the money...if it keeps them afloat until the end of the season that will mean we don't lose the 6 points we won from them which might prove decisive!

This thought goes through my mind.

Didn't Gold and Sullivan want to lend Portsmouth money last season to prevent them being liquidated and safeguard points that West Ham had won from them?

 

[Joe Gatting's Dad]

You cannot "support" two teams.

 

[gjh1971]

Full page article which doesn't make good reading. They are financially buggered and, reading between the lines, if no rich benefactor comes in pronto, they will go into liquidation - not just administration.

Impact of this is that us and Bournemouth will lose 6 points, Huddersfield 3 and Southampton have only played them once so far and lost. This will make the top of the table somewhat closer.

Its been said hundreds of times a team is about to go into liquidation, but it seldom happens, so I wouldnt worry over losing points. In my lifetime, just Aldershot have gone bust mid season.

 

[Acker79]

There was another thread (in which there are tables from saturday evening that show what the standings would look like) where gritt mentioned that there are precedents for not losing the points, but instead awarding teams yet to play them 3 points.

I'll edit in a link...
If Plymouth go bust......

As of the end of Sunday morning (i.e. not including last night's games), if results v plymouth are voided

(This is a new addition to my stats keeping and I'm still not in the habit of updating it all properly. I forgot to account for Colchester today. Fortunately it doesn't really change the table except their gd should be -1 and they would be on 30 games.)

If plymouth results stand, and unplayed games v plymouth are given as 3 points it would look like this:

 

[Cheshire Cat]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/dav...2/plymouth-argyle-hmrc-administration-gardner

They really are in immense trouble

"If the players and staff are paid, £350,000 in PAYE would immediately become due, so even an injection of £1.5m would be immediately swallowed. Add £3.6m of trade creditors, including £350,000 owed to Inscape, a company that laid a new pitch at Home Park in the summer, and a £300,000 overdraft with Barclays, which has frozen the club's bank account, and Ridsdale, warning that total debts are £13m, says £4m‑5m is required just to see the club to the summer.
"I had to stand in front of hardworking staff this week and tell them they are not being paid," Ridsdale said. "If there is a major injection of money this week, the club can carry on. If not, my advice is the directors have to declare the club is insolvent and appoint an administrator."
Even then, he said, it is not at all certain that Argyle, formed in 1886, will remain in existence, because there is no money coming in to pay the wages and fund the club during an administration. Argyle made a £3m loss in 2009, according to their most recent accounts, when their wage bill was £7.5m. Ridsdale said wages have increased to £8.5m, while relegation from the Championship last season has cost around £2.5m in TV money alone – the widened gap with League One due to increased solidarity payments made by the Premier League, which go principally to Championship clubs.
Ridsdale says Argyle have borrowed in advance against their season-ticket money for this and even next season, and already shovelled it into the black hole, still owing the finance company Ticketus a further £150,000. The shortfall between the club's income and spending has also been desperately patched up with millions in loans from Todd and Gardner, who has a personal mortgage over Home Park, Kagami and his associates, and £1m from one of the Plymouth directors, Tony Wrathall.
Just about the only income is the relatively thin gate receipts from non-season-ticket holders – the crowd for Argyle's 2-1 win over Colchester on Saturday was 8,982.
Ridsdale argues that if the club do fall into administration this week any potential buyer – he claims two parties, one local, one not, are interested – will still have to fund the club in administration, otherwise it faces liquidation. "That is how serious the situation is; the club has run out of cash and the directors have to face up to it," he said."

 

[Dandyman]

David Conn is one of the best journalists around when it comes to this type of story. Yet more proof of how useless the FA and FL are at looking after the game IMO.

 

[Skint Gull]

Is the Albions total annual wage bill in the public domain at all?

 

[Lincoln Imp]

David Conn is one of the best journalists around when it comes to this type of story. Yet more proof of how useless the FA and FL are at looking after the game IMO.

I am sorry, but David Conn is also an arsehole. He wrote one of the nastiest polemics ever about the Falmer campaign, spinning some sort of right-on yarn to suggest it was all about rich men making money out of environmental destruction. Lewes LibDems have probably still got the cutting on their bathroom ceilings. As warped propaganda went it was right up there. No respect whatsoever.

And I thought his Argyle story was muddled and lacking impact when you consider the material he had to work with. Why on earth didn't they ask Paul Hayward to write it?

 

[drew]

I wonder if Ridsdale is still getting his consultancy fees paid?

 

[severnside gull]

I wonder if Ridsdale is still getting his consultancy fees paid?

I am no admirer of the man but in fairness I don't think he has asked to be paid anything by the current board - I suspect he was planning on getting something from the new owners as a sort of "agent's fee"

I can understand his frustration that the people who have driven Argyle down want to continue once someone else's money has rescued them

 

[keaton]

I am sorry, but David Conn is also an arsehole. He wrote one of the nastiest polemics ever about the Falmer campaign, spinning some sort of right-on yarn to suggest it was all about rich men making money out of environmental destruction. Lewes LibDems have probably still got the cutting on their bathroom ceilings. As warped propaganda went it was right up there. No respect whatsoever.

And I thought his Argyle story was muddled and lacking impact when you consider the material he had to work with. Why on earth didn't they ask Paul Hayward to write it?

Anyone who's interested can read it again here. Most will struggle to find anything vaguely nasty or polemic inside

Football: Brighton torn between old England and new Albion | Society | The Guardian

 

[mwrpoole]

if the monthly wage bill results in a £350k PAYE bill, then the monthly wages must be about £850k - £950k, which works out £10m-£11.5m per year. Surely someone on their board must have realised this wasn't sustainable and they should have had a firesale in the summer transfer window let alone January this year! Why don't they just loan out all the players to reduce the wage bill and play the youth team or something, they're going down anyway. Didn't Pompey get some special permission to sell players outside of the transfer window to stay afloat or have i dreamt that up?

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

The simple solution is for Plymouth to change their name to Portsmouth Argyle.

 

[Lady Whistledown]

You cannot "support" two teams.

On this subject, there was another article in yesterday's Guardian, relating to Cardiff City's current financial status. I think the gist of it was saying that they have a large mortgage arranged through an offshore company which is a hedge fund managed by Ray Ranson. The same Ray Ranson who is chairman (or CEO, something like that) of Coventry City. There is, additionally, some kind of condition on this mortgage which means assets cannot be brought in or sold on without the written permission of the lender.

As I understand it, that theoretically means Cardiff could not buy or sell any players without the consent of this company, and by definition, Ray Ranson. Which sounds like there's a rather serious potential conflict of interest going on, given that Cardiff and Coventry are in the same division.

Oooh, look, another ex Ridsdale club!

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Anyone who's interested can read it again here. Most will struggle to find anything vaguely nasty or polemic inside

Football: Brighton torn between old England and new Albion | Society | The Guardian

You've got to love the last line of that article, the quote from Derek Chapman

 

[hans kraay fan club]

You've got to love the last line of that article, the quote from Derek Chapman

"Chapman, however, is not impressed with the row: "When I met John Prescott," he says, "I was told not to mention the planning application, so I didn't. What do they think, that we bunged him? I think Norman Baker is a wanker, and you can print that."