Investment thread

[tonycrowuk]

I didn't hear it like that. More like... "with hindsight we can see he was certainly a Championship player and if we had the money it would have been great to try to sign him in the summer of 2023, however, we didn't have the money"

Ok fair play perhaps I heard it wrong. Or a different podcast. I believe he is the best chairman of my generation. I'm 49 years old. And I'm happy with him to continue with the great work he has done. He does say in other podcasts that most of the work in house is done by many others in the chain of command. We are a brilliantly run football club.

 

[Stbkk]

This is a brilliant post.

However, lm afraid their is a section of the fanbase who just don't get budget restrictions. If you mention it, they think your being defeatist.

Last season, Argyle had a budget that if you spilt the league in 3 groups of 8 teams. They were in the middle group. However, more near the bottom of that group of 8, than the top. So between 12th -15th.

So when you say to people you think it's a bloody good achievement that if we got in the playoffs, whilst we are in the top 2, it's not because you don't want the glory of automatic promotion but l try to be fair about my expectations. Last season to comfortably get in the playoffs given our level of budget would of been a magnificent achievement. Had we not got in the top 2, let alone win the championship, people would of seen it as failure. I just don't think things are ever that black & white.

What we achieved last year, on our budget, was a one of the best achievements you will see in terms of pounds for points in any of the four duvisions. In fact given what we spent, it might just be one of modern footballs best success stories.

People don't want to hear we are a small club. But we are. People don't want to face up to the overwhelming budgets these teams have over us.

It always comes back to money, because football is about money. It's about chasing a dream of a league where as fans you end up getting screwed over to watch your team play by silly kick off times & a transport network that can't support you. There are too many within football who don't care about it. And they certainly don't care about the fans. They just want to make money out of you. £90 to go & watch Fulham on a matchday. And that was against Burnley.


I know Simon Hallett is different. But it worries me the greater financial backing someone can give this club what their real motivation is. And whilst Simon Hallett does need further investment l do wonder at what price Argyle will pay in order to be a club that can just drift in the championship. I don't want to be a WBA or Bristol City that is in the Championship but just losing tens of millions for some outside shot to a league where we weren't ready to be in.

Some say that's defeatist, but look at Argyle fans reaction now to struggling in the Championship. It's more media scrutinised than its ever been. If you get it wrong, like a Sheffield Utd it's a painful 7 months after the first couple of months where its the "honeymoon period".

We may survive this season, then what? What do people think they will see different next year? Some better attacking football perhaps. Yet you still need the money to buy that quality of players to sustain that type of football. Look at our squad at this minute. You have Hardie. And the next in line is Ben Waine. You have Whittaker as attacking wide player. If he got injured you have some like Alfie Devine, Callum Wright or Bundu. These days football is a squad game & if you look at our squad, not just our first 11, would you hand on heart say that's a squad that is Championship ready?

Our future will be determined by how deep the next investors pockets are. Not only that, we have to find people with money who might not like getting dictate to, as to where their money goes.

Despite all this. I have to say l am a very happy Argyle fan. Not because l want to settle for mediocrity. More because l feel a great engagement with the club. I feel we made mistakes, but we trying our hardest to survive. Everyone looks at relegation will be some final chapter where we wont be back in the championship for another 10 years. Yet this club is run differently from the versions of the club that have been relegated before. I look beyond that & think how healthy our club is and that it will still be moving forward with projects like brickfields off the pitch. Maybe not enough for some. Maybe a lack of ambition for others.

Yet until we have a billionaire in place then lm going to try & be realistic with my expectations.

This is such a good post in my opinion. And it also highlights the one drawback of the 'yo-yo club' concept. Last year we seriously over performed our budget. Should we be relegated again I would assume our budget would still be in the L1 'mid table' range, considering the other teams in league 1. While it is quite possible we could come back up again in a season or two, the budget issue will be a serious (but not insurmountable) obstacle to this. If you look at the teams relegated from the championship last season (all ex-premiership clubs, incidentally), Blackpool are the only one with even an outside chance of making it to the play-offs, let alone automatic promotion.
So while the brickfields investment is surely necessary and a good long term move, the need for significant investment remains even if we are relegated, and if we are to become a sustainable championship club at any time in the future, let alone withing 5 years.

 

[Greenarmy1234]

Not snide.

Maybe challenging.

Part of his role is to prepare the club to challenge. To seek out investment. To not spend 21 million on Brickfields when 5 million would have secured our status this year.

Its not a role. Hes not here to pick up a wage. Old Argyle woudnt have invested in Brickfields and thats why we are where we are now (i.e a small championship club). Investing in infrastructure is the foundations to future success. Spend 5 mill on the playing squad and you could still be in league 1 next year or year after with nothing to show for it. Trouble is moust football fans want instant success and dam waiting for it. Brickfields IS the right call long term!

 

[truejanner]

I wonder if a lot of the comments about not borrowing money come from the older generation who witnessed what went on years gone by and the comments about borrowing money to buy players and try to help staying in the championship come from the mainly younger generation who have basically been bought up in the borrowing culture.

 

[The Pasty Kid]

I think it's less about borrowing culture and more about panic with us staring at possible relegation, but in my view you prioritise building the club before the team, as the latter is transitory and they'll always be pressure to spend more on players. We broke our spending record twice last summer. They DID invest in the team, but there are always limits.

 

[Monster Green]

Not snide.

Maybe challenging.

Part of his role is to prepare the club to challenge. To seek out investment. To not spend 21 million on Brickfields when 5 million would have secured our status this year.

Mods - could you create a FacePalm emoji? Would come in very handy at times

 

[JackPP]

Why? Because someone disagrees with you.

We may well be relagated. A couple of signings in January could have made the difference.

Azaz and Cundle have not been successfully replaced. A bigger budget would have made this job easier.

Gillesphy, Butcher, Cundle, Azaz all left.

I wonder if our wage bill is smaller now than it was in January!

 

[JackPP]

Its not a role. Hes not here to pick up a wage. Old Argyle woudnt have invested in Brickfields and thats why we are where we are now (i.e a small championship club). Investing in infrastructure is the foundations to future success. Spend 5 mill on the playing squad and you could still be in league 1 next year or year after with nothing to show for it. Trouble is moust football fans want instant success and dam waiting for it. Brickfields IS the right call long term!

The role of Chairman isn’t a role?

I haven’t argued for “instant success”. I have simply suggested that the finances to pay for Brickfields could have been stretched over a longer time period thus increasing our chance of staying up this year by having a bigger playing budget.

Nothing is certain.

We may be relegated and see an exodus - Cooper, Whitaker, Gibson, Mumba etc and end up being a midtable league 1 team. We would lose far too many good players for a new manager to come in and replace and end up being top 6 in October.

We would have missed an opportunity to push the club forward and end up as a mediocre league 1 team for the next decade.

 

[The Pasty Kid]

We broke our transfer record twice, where does it end? The TV money in league one is an enormous reduction if it doesn't pay off. Azaz was injured for three months last season. You build the infrastructure first and live sustainably while that's being built. No one here wants relegation, but gambling isn't the way out of it, and spending infrastructure money on players that guarantee nothing isn't the way either

 

[The Doctor]

We wouldn’t be borrowing against future income.

Just spreading the payments over more time.

Both League 1 and the Championship have guaranteed TV money. We could have said that 50% of TV money goes to the Brickfields project and 50% goes to immediate squad needs.

Additionally, this isn’t me “spending other people’s money”. This is guaranteed money for the club from the TV deal going to the club.

[Apologies - as always, I have started writing, gone around the houses a bit, and ended writing far too many words so that most people will just take a look, think 'too long' and move on!]

The bulk of any money spent on the playing squad basically vanishes out of sight into the players' bank accounts. Take a player signed for £1m (a low fee for a Championship talent but a high fee for Argyle) who is signed to a 4 year contract on £10k per week (a low wage for a Championship talent but a high wage for Argyle). The total cost of the deal is ~£3m, two-thirds of which is pocketed by the player. Instead you can invest £3m into infrastructure and at the end of 4 years you still have that infrastructure and can continue to use it to generate income or home-grown talent.

Of course, if you manage to get promoted whilst putting more money into your playing squad then yes, you might get back more money than you put in. But in that case you then you need all of that money (and more) to meet the higher financial demands of the kinds of players needed at that level. Much more likely is the scenario that you don't get promoted and end up like the majority of teams in the Premier League and Championship - continually having to pump new money into the club (even with the increased TV revenue) just to try to stay where you are. Unless you have a bottomless wallet or a magic-money tree this can only end one way - it is just a matter of when that end arrives...

The other possibility is that you buy a player for a total investment (including wages) of, say, £3m and then sell them on for a good profit (say for a £10m transfer fee). That seems to work from a financial perspective but the profit generated is nowhere near the apparent difference of £7m because of tax and inflation. To replace the £3m player in 2-3 years time you probably have to buy a new player for a higher fee and paying higher wages.

Also, to build a really competitive squad at this level it is necessary to have not one or two £1m (really £3m) players, but many times this (and probably a few £5m+ players thrown into the mix too) which means that to increase the chance of a return on investment via the promotion route you need a far higher level of investment than the kind of amount that might become available to Argyle. Finally, to attract the kind of players needed you need to be able to provide them with the kind of working environment, facilities and support personnel that they could have access to at other clubs at Championship level and for that you need to invest in support personnel and infrastructure...

I know this will seem a bit defeatist but I am a realist. This doesn't mean that there isn't fun to be had supporting the club in its attempt to try to compete - there is. I just think that anyone expecting the club to find external investment that dramatically alters the parameters that the club operates within is almost certainly going to be disappointed.

The other point about the £11m being spent on Brickfields is that I am pretty sure that Simon Hallett would not contemplate spending it on players if he wasn't spending it on infrastructure. It is not a choice between infrastructure or players but a choice between infrastructure or nothing. It's Simon Hallett's personal money that is, plain and simply, not there for anything other than Brickfields.

 

[Jon with no H]

[Apologies - as always, I have started writing, gone around the houses a bit, and ended writing far too many words so that most people will just take a look, think 'too long' and move on!]

The bulk of any money spent on the playing squad basically vanishes out of sight into the players' bank accounts. Take a player signed for £1m (a low fee for a Championship talent but a high fee for Argyle) who is signed to a 4 year contract on £10k per week (a low wage for a Championship talent but a high wage for Argyle). The total cost of the deal is ~£3m, two-thirds of which is pocketed by the player. Instead you can invest £3m into infrastructure and at the end of 4 years you still have that infrastructure and can continue to use it to generate income or home-grown talent.

Of course, if you manage to get promoted whilst putting more money into your playing squad then yes, you might get back more money than you put in. But in that case you then you need all of that money (and more) to meet the higher financial demands of the kinds of players needed at that level. Much more likely is the scenario that you don't get promoted and end up like the majority of teams in the Premier League and Championship - continually having to pump new money into the club (even with the increased TV revenue) just to try to stay where you are. Unless you have a bottomless wallet or a magic-money tree this can only end one way - it is just a matter of when that end arrives...

The other possibility is that you buy a player for a total investment (including wages) of, say, £3m and then sell them on for a good profit (say for a £10m transfer fee). That seems to work from a financial perspective but the profit generated is nowhere near the apparent difference of £7m because of tax and inflation. To replace the £3m player in 2-3 years time you probably have to buy a new player for a higher fee and paying higher wages.

Also, to build a really competitive squad at this level it is necessary to have not one or two £1m (really £3m) players, but many times this (and probably a few £5m+ players thrown into the mix too) which means that to increase the chance of a return on investment via the promotion route you need a far higher level of investment than the kind of amount that might become available to Argyle. Finally, to attract the kind of players needed you need to be able to provide them with the kind of working environment, facilities and support personnel that they could have access to at other clubs at Championship level and for that you need to invest in support personnel and infrastructure...

I know this will seem a bit defeatist but I am a realist. This doesn't mean that there isn't fun to be had supporting the club in its attempt to try to compete - there is. I just think that anyone expecting the club to find external investment that dramatically alters the parameters that the club operates within is almost certainly going to be disappointed.

The other point about the £11m being spent on Brickfields is that I am pretty sure that Simon Hallett would not contemplate spending it on players if he wasn't spending it on infrastructure. It is not a choice between infrastructure or players but a choice between infrastructure or nothing. It's Simon Hallett's personal money that is, plain and simply, not there for anything other than Brickfields.

I read it all! It's is all completely correct, but you may be yelling into a void with the intended recipient.

 

[JackPP]

A bit more respect wouldn’t go amiss.

I have been polite and respectful in this debate yet have continually been belittled for having a different opinion.

I’ll leave it there and hope we can get some points tonight!

 

[jimsing]

The role of Chairman isn’t a role?

I haven’t argued for “instant success”. I have simply suggested that the finances to pay for Brickfields could have been stretched over a longer time period thus increasing our chance of staying up this year by having a bigger playing budget.

Nothing is certain.

We may be relegated and see an exodus - Cooper, Whitaker, Gibson, Mumba etc and end up being a midtable league 1 team. We would lose far too many good players for a new manager to come in and replace and end up being top 6 in October.

We would have missed an opportunity to push the club forward and end up as a mediocre league 1 team for the next decade.

You do like extremes don't you?

At the start of the season our playing budget was decided, just as other budgets and decisions on spending were also made.

A bigger playing budget really doesn't increase our chance of staying up at all. It just means that we are paying more in player wages and may have had no effect on our season. Ah, I hear you say, but it might have done.

Well, that is not good enough. Money is precious to this club. Money spent without certainty of any returns is money lost, and to rob one budget to add to another is so unjustifiable in its outcome.

We spent over £2m on two players, our joint records each, what more did you want?

Hindsight is a marvelous thing when you can look back and wish things had been done differently, knowing how things have since turned out, and you can criticise all you want but these decisions have to be made at the start of the season in the knowledge that we would have the lowest budget in the league anyway.

Would another £2m make any difference, and if so why borrow from and delay the infrastructure which is far more important and is required like by yesterday, in order for the club to move on up.

We have enough disadvantages in this part of the world without delaying the infrastructure that has been so neglected in the past.

If relegation comes, it comes, the club cannot be criticised for not spending more than we can afford, and that will always be the mantra ever since we went into administration by spending more than we could afford.

 

[Greenarmy1234]

That's football. Get used to it.

You cannot always get your own way.

What's best for the club isn't always best for the supporter.

Well said, in this case the maths are:

supporter = short term (i want success now or i'll throw my toys out of the pram), spend money to stay up then inevitably go down when funds dry up.

The hallett/ brickfields model (southampton, Brighton, Brentford model) = improve infrastructure including youth and training facilities, unearth un tapped talent for years to come who may push us into a higher position and even better then get sold on for a shed load. Worth way more than £15 mil tv deal now. This buys us a chance of maybe in say ten years getting to the promised land of the prem, instead of surviving in the championship for a couple of seasons.

To the educated this is a no brainer.

Sadly most supporters want instant success

The Hallett model lays the foundations. The supporter model buys you gold taps and fine Artwork before the house is built

 

[JannerinCardiff]

Absolutely right, we are decades behind some other.clubs in this division in terms of facilities.

3 or 4 years I'd say with 21million Brickfields close to starting.