Jon Watts":3akclkr7 said:Patrik":3akclkr7 said:...
Again i know plenty of clubs from the premier league right down to the Ryman league that offer their own in house direct debit schemes other than outsource them to a loan shark.
I'm not sure if that's really been possible until relatively recently. I think the law changed sometime last year (not sure when, exactly), but before that change in the law a company couldn't offer an in-house credit agreement involving more than 4 periodic payments to a consumer unless the company lending the money was regulated by the FCA. As a football club, Argyle are almost certainly not FCA regulated (and probably wouldn't want to be - it would likely cost a lot) - hence the use of a 3rd party credit provider for this sort of scheme.
Even some car and home insurance providers use 3rd party credit providers to collect premiums if customers choose to pay monthly, rather than up front. It's pretty common practise.
As I said, I think the law has changed recently, so maybe they will be able to offer such a scheme next year. However, if they do, it's a risk... If you're not going to carry out a credit check on your (potential) customer, you run the risk of not getting paid.
Or, if they did credit check people, the people who got rejected last year / this year will still get rejected if they fail the credit check.
My final thought on this - as a 4th tier club with fairly substantial debts, do you really think Argyle have the cash to effectively be making interest-free loans to people?
The club shouldn't be immune to criticism, but I think its a bit unfair to criticise them for not giving people an interest free loan (without doing a credit check) while they still owe hundreds of thousands of pounds to their creditors.
I fully concur with your last 2 short paragraphs. I do not agree with the increased pricing for access to the Business Lounge for the said match. The overheads have remained static bar policing of course which will come out of that share of 'profit' returned to the FL.