PAFC and the AFT

There is a statement by the AFT regarding it's relations with the Club and a response from the Club regarding the AFT. I can't do pasting.

Seems like there has been a falling out. If you read the AFT statement it accuses the Club of not wanting to meet with them and not wanting to discuss anything of importance. This is since the AFT did that protection thing about buying the ground. The club say they never had meetings between JB and the AFT rep and it was never intended that they should.

Now my mistrust of the Argyle Board is well known on here. I have to say that now something really important has come up, namely acquiring the ground, the curtains have been pulled and people inside the club don't appear to want anyone knowing what's going to happen next. This secret squirrell stuff is worrying but not surprising for me. There is a quote on pasoti made by Brent back in 2012 regarding transparency. It should and would be the best there has ever been. Well push has come to shove and guess what. Said what sounded good at the time perhaps? I find this quite alarming that Brent could consider not giving credence to the main supporters group.

 

The AFT withdrawing from talking with the club is basically an own goal situation......the PAFC board will lose no sleep over that.....they obviously feel that the AFT have tried to make it harder for PAFC to buy the ground.

 

And quite rightly so in my book. What they have done is make it more transparent and that is what I think "he" doesn't like. What is the point in talking to the club who are prepared to say nothing much at all. What is the point in having meetings to discuss only what the club wants to discuss? It's not exactly being in a position to hold anyone to account is it. That 2012 statement by Brent appears to have been bullshit. Yes it's his club and he owns it along with a couple of others and of course he can if he wishes do what he wants with it. But don't take everyone for fools for christ sake. Perhaps if he gets his hands on the freehold he won't give a damn for keeping supporters interested anymore. He will have his saleable asset and doesn't need football income. He can watch Argyle disappear like a number of his other ventures although this time he will be able to re-coup outlay. I am getting very nervous now with a here we go again outcome beginning to poke it's head up.

 

It is an interesting situation that from what I can make out is a bit of a playground spat. To be honest I have never understood the point of the AFT or what they are trying to achieve. They claim to represent the fanbase but with only approx 1000 members they cant possibly be truly representative. They certainly don't represent my view. This spat seems to have arisen from the AFT wanting to routinely meet with JB and JB deciding not to. For me this shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how the football club is run. JB spends less than half a day a week at the club and leaves the day to day running to Martyn Starnes the CEO. There is probably little point in JB meeting with AFT as he won't know all the detail of the trivia and for the big stuff he probably won't want to discuss as as it will be commercially sensitive. It makes sense to meet with the CEO and they used to monthly. Like many routine meetings nothing much changed from month to month so it was suggested to meet quarterly which is still twice as often as required by the 'rules'. AFT have thrown their toys out and the club have more or less said well it is their loss.

Frankly it is just typical of an amateur organisation (AFT) not getting what they want and deciding not to play nicely anymore. The AFT might have worked if they were set up properly, raised some money and bought a seat on the board.....oh, there was no appetite to do that.

 

......and there you have it.....words of wisdom Lyndy......you should have got the job........

 

As I remember it, the club initially sought to engage with the Trust, including asking for fund raising to take an equity stake and supervisory board representation - which the Trust didn't do. The Trust wanted operational rather than supervisory involvement and they (and the fans) didn't want to put funds in even though the club was in direst of straits.

Supervisory involvement would reasonably be expected to include occupation of the ground, the very matter which AFT now seems to be exercised about.

More recently, the Trust has unilaterally placed community status on the ground which implies they anticipate the current board will do something underhand with it. This looks suspiciously like a hostile act and it's unsurprising the club aren't impressed.

The Trust is now a busted flush as a positive contributor to the club.

 

The latest release titled 'never again', signed by various previous AFT chairmen and an ex (minor) director, will only pour petrol on this already well established fire-especially as they have decided to issue it to 'the media' at same same as the club. I am well aware of how close the club came to extinction and clearly we need to prevent a similar situation arising, however, this very public debate can only damage the standing of the club. Any would be investors will probably running away now-why would they bother to invest if what appears to be the official supporters trust are hell bent on preventing infrastructure progress?.

For me, PAFC should buy back the lease and use the assets to attract funding which may or may not include a new grandstand. Not owning the ground means that prospect is more remote and less attractive to any potential investor. Don't want to turn this into another anti/pro JB discussion but I am at a loss to understand why a number of people are assuming that as soon as he buys the ground (though it would be PAFC and not him buying it) he is going to sell the lot to the first bidder and run away. As far as I can see there is absolutely no fact based evidence that he has anything but the best interests of the club in mind-and that doesn't mean that he might not sell up to someone who can take the club forward.

The AFT in terms of usefulness is as dead a parrot as a parrot can be.

 

And just a point of interest cribbed from PASOTI.....

'In the recent AFT survey a slight majority of fans (50.7%) wanted the club to take up the option of buying the freehold. It's a small majority but the UK left the EU on a small majority. The views of the fans shouldn't be ignored.'

That's democracy folks....AFT appear to have gone against the majority and are ignoring the vote....Come on Teresa May, you can do it too!

 

Lyndhurst shhhhh wait until the time comes.

 

Don't want to turn this into a for/against JB thread lyndhurst???? Of course you do because that is exactly what it is. Either the AFT is rhubarb and worthless or JB is suspect. It is so easy to throw stones at the AFT and conveniently forget the JB part in this. For example removing the use of some storage space they were given access to and removing their input into the game programme. What is that if it isn't throwing toys out of prams. It is fairly obvious Brent does not like to be looked at too closely and resents the AFT taking out the blocker on his ground acquisition. I find it so amusing that you find there is no fact based evidence that Brent doesn't have Argyle at heart yet find it easy to dismiss the no fact based idea the AFT are not the ones telling the truth. Do you know they aren't? Did Brent say those things about openess and supporter involving stuff? It is a direct quote of his from 2012 so he clearly did say it. Where is it then? Hidden in the small print of "comercially sensitive". Despite the bullshit statement he never had any intention of being open.

I find it difficult to believe so many people just take his word for everything and don't question anything he says or does. Have they learned nothing at all from previous events?

 

Don't get me wrong sensible, I am not hard over one way or the other whether the club should own the freehold, but on balance I think it makes sense from a business point of view for the reasons above. What irks me is a) the unprofessional way that the AFT are behaving, and b) the somewhat irrational assumption that JB would authorise the purchase for purely nefarious reasons. It may well be childish to restrict access to the storage space and not give the AFT program space but to be honest if I were in the fortunate position to own the football club then I would not have tolerated the AFT for as long as the club have.

I think the AFT is worthless because it doesn't represent the majority of the fans. I also think that neither party have covered themselves in glory in this dispute but as JB holds all the cards there will only be one winner. The current owners are more open and engaged with supporters than any of the previous ones that I can remember, but for whatever reason continue to be criticised so I guess their feeling is that they cant be bothered anymore.

 

You are right in that the AFT doesn't represent the majority of supporters. But who does if they don't? They do represent a large chunk and there isn't a bigger organisation of supporters anywhere else. I haven't taken a lot of notice of what the AFT has or hasn't done. I'm not a member. I have read some of the minutes where things have been asked and the small answers have been given up to a point. This is often only about how much a pasty is. Very important but hardly ground shattering. If there is ever a serious question posed it seems there is silence. I don't agree with your openess suggestion with this Board. They are no more open than the previous lot unless it's about something trivial. That was not what Brent suggested at the outset. The other thing about Brent sanctioning the purchase of the ground not having any nefarious motive. The only way we will know is if he does it and if he does have other motives then it will be too late. You cannot know he is being genuine anymore than I can know he isn't. A matter of trust and given what happened to the club previously when the Board of fans sold us down the river then it's hardly surprising their is doubt. Taking into consideration his business dealings outside of football, and that is the only way you can judge a person on the whole not just a fraction, then you have to say he has been a shoot through mostly. He has signed up to do all sorts and done none of them. Why would you think he would treat Argyle any differently? I would prefer on balance the club not to own the ground. If it goes wrong then at least the asset still exists.

 

Well I see there is now another statement from the Board of PAFC following their most recent meeting. It poses it's own questions and answers them and to be fair most of the questions have been asked by supporters. I think that the recent spat and published doubts a lot have have made this statement come about. The one thing that I find highly funny with this though is the referal to what was being said on "social medial" according to the statement. These things have been on there for months and months yet now it gets referred to. Questions have been asked previously along the lines of the statements questions and answers yet were until now ignored. They want to be open they say yet have only just discovered a means of being that. Pity for me it looks less genuine this way than if they had been more forthcoming originally and not pushed into it.

The thing about the statement is that you now have to believe everything you are being told in it. There is no means of questioning any of it. I'll lay odds that any question at the next meeting of supporters and PAFC will not be met with any explanations and it will take weeks and weeks for any minutes to be produced as usual. Even now though they are trying to get away from the fact that it will be pretty much Brent buying the ground by saying there are other shareholders. Yes there are but the vast chunk of shares are owned by Brent and you can dress this up by naming the company rather than Brent and some people will think he isn't buying it at all. I'm sure these people think that all Janners are straw chewing idiots and don't understand anything. There is nothing in this statement that convinces me he is the Mesiah. He has however set out a list of "oh no it isn'ts! and it will remain to be seen how many of them he keeps in the future. Hopefully all you trusting souls will be right.

 

What the statement does.... is kick the AFT into the long grass....saying to the fans...look you don't need them..... we will openly tell you what is happening at the club and what we intend to do.

It does state that the board haven't as yet made a decision on buying the ground when it is possible to do so in a few months time......come on pull the other one....you'll be saying next that you haven't decided what your doing after the next tea break......or should that be a 'tot' of something stronger break.

James Brent will not be forced to answer questions that he feels is company business.....football club or not he sees it has a business project.....and we discuss matters at the annual AGM...thank you very much.

I cannot see where the AFT go from here...other than organizing a bit of weeding or painting....and both of those have been neglected areas for quite a long time.....so paying for the next rubbish skip and providing for the volunteers to do the work surely isn't the way forward is it ?.

Wasn't it fan power (AFT) that helped get Brent into the driving seat in the first place.....something has definately gone wrong in the relationship since.... thats for sure.

 

To be fair, this statement, interestingly tweeted by Simon Hallett during last night's game, doesn't do much more than state what's standard business practice (e.g. that it will be club that makes the purchase, not Brent himself) or already in the public domain (e.g. that there's a covenant that the site will always be a sports ground). If you didn't start from the position that all business people are crooks, you won't have learned much.

I thought the 2 things that did stand out were that the purchase would be financed by the existing shareholders putting in equity capital in proportion to their existing shares, which will be unsecured if the club ever went belly up. There will be no loans, no interest and no repayment schedule.

Secondly, it looks to me that buying the ground for £1.7m based on the rentals in the bottom 2 leagues just about makes financial sense in line with the lower end of returns on commercial property. Neither the original lease nor the proposed sale is a big win or a big loss for either party. Presumably though, purchasing gives PAFC a bit more manoeuvrability in developing the ground.

The statement isn't specific on what happens if the club gets promoted to the Championship, other than saying the rent "increases substantially". If you assume that means no more than that the rent cap of £3.4m disappears and that starting with the rent review in 2021 (ish), the maximum of 20% applies, the balance in favour of buying now does shift in PAFC's favour but but it's still in the range for commercial property yields. That's unsurprising as anything much beyond 5 years has a limited effect on the calculations and we're looking 20 years out here. If the increase in rent in the Championship is more than that, then naturally the purchase could become a real winner.

So in summary, the original lease looks to have been a reasonable arrangement for both sides and buying it out at £1.7m is the same - and therefore, as a nil-sum game, it isn't a big win for PAFC. It's only going to be a significant win if the club gets to the Championship and the rent escalates greatly. The purchase is putting the owners' cash at risk and this must be quite a statement of intent from them that they will get the club promoted twice.

 

You still have to take a leap of faith that the information given is actually what is really going to happen. None of that information is legally binding on anyone. It may be that none of that happens as described. It may be that all of it does and there is nothing to worry about. Time will tell. There is a blog out there that goes into the Brent companies web which makes interesting reading. Brent always uses other monies to finanace stuff around his portfolio. Takes money from A to prop up B and so on. Lets just hope remortgaging the ground several times over isn't what he uses in the future to save some other deal. I have also seen covenants thrown out with the bath water before so I'm not totally convinced the usage of Home Park cannot be changed at some point. We all know that big business has a habit of managing to get permission for all sorts.

 

Maybe I was wrong. Those that think all businessmen are crooks won't learn anything either.

 

I,m not a crook!

 

They should be Called SHAFT!

 

Is that crook or crock Joe.

I want to go on record as having not said all business men are crooks. I would however state that all business men are not straight either. There have been many reports recently about BHS shenanigans and the old sports clothing company hasn't been shown in any good light either. It is not James Brent's honesty that I have questioned but more his motives for wanting to do the business. All of it is his choice to do or not to do. If he chose to do then it isn't illegal and therefore not exactly dishonest. My fear is what he might use the purchase of the ground for in the future. The last lot used it to gain funds over and over. It was reckless not illegal then but it led to the club almost dying. We do not want to go through that again do we. The way it is reported in the blog that he does his business leaves the using of the ground value with a big question mark over it. It is the uncertainty I dislike despite the statement. That is a statement for the intention now but is not a legally binding one and who knows what might happen if other parts of the Brent Empire were to hit the skids. Ergo I would prefer the ground not to be included in his holdings.