Who is Jamie Hart ?

This name keeps cropping up in threads that inform us that he helped to sell the 'family silver' for very little, the likes of Joe Mason for example. Please can someone explain who he is, what his actual job description is at Home Park, his targets and achievements if any and what sort of contract does he have ( length etc ) ?

As a 'so called ' Member and a Member of The Trust I feel more information on this man needs to be out there for 'fans' like me as all I read on here is talk of his involvement in letting players go for 'silly Argyle' prices.

As an avid viewer of the excellent Greens on Screen I have noticed his appearance at the fan-junkets prior to kick off in a sort of 'Argyle Uniform', so who is he and what is his, to me secret , role within our Club ?

Thanks. Phil.

Paul Hart is a manager and former player Phil. Very good friends with Peter Ridsdale by all accounts and his son Jamie was brought in to assist us in administration, to get the best possible transfer fees for any players that could be sold.

Obviously he's not that good at his job because he sold off our best players for peanuts!

Whether the prices quoted included his fees or not I don't know, but there doesn't even seem to have been any sell-on clauses or bonuses linked to performances of players like Noone, Mason and Bolasie.

Jobs for the boys if you ask me, and Mr Ridsdale conveniently gets Mason sold to Cardiff, where Mr Ridsdale was not in their good books any longer, for the princely sum of £150k I believe, in my book that was a great deal for Cardiff and probably Jamie Hart, and went a long way to getting Ridsdale back in Cardiffs good books, all at our expense.

I'd better not say anymore!

My 4 year old daughter could have sold those players for more and she sold me a toy kangaroo yesterday for just 4p (to make it worse, I gave her an imaginary 4p coin).

The agent in question is either incompetent or made a nice bit of cash from a fire sale situation. The fans haven't really questioned it as it's conjecture, could possibly lead you into trouble legally if you made allegations with no concrete knowledge and they've been led to believe that we needed to get rid of them immediately for any price - even though our administration period seemed to go on forever.

If I was the agent, I'd have probably taken a little more time and I would have had the deferred wages the players were owed over this 'little more time' written into the contract as a signing on fee. Mason, wait a few more weeks while I get you a better deal and a bigger transfer fee and we'll get those wages for those few weeks that you aren't being paid written into that signing on fee.

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My mistake ,It is NOT Paul Hart but Jamie Hart that works at Argyle, see I told you I did not know these people I have altered the thread title accordingly. Thanks Jock and Hairy J for your info, so we employ an Agent do we ? Have I got that right ? What is his day to day role at Argyle ? I am hoping for an 'open' debate on this and not one tied down with fear of Data Protection etc. If he has knowingly undersold players for Argyle then why is he still on the pay-roll ( if he is ? )

His face crops up on stage at the Argyle pre-match piss-up ( sorry Fan Fest ) fairly often, ( thank you G.O.S. Photos ), if he is employed as an ' Agent ' then why do we need him ?

This is nothing more than trying to get to the bottom of comments made on other threads where others imply ( allege ) that our best players were undersold by Jamie Hart and others.

Phil.

Thai green wrote:

My mistake ,It is NOT Paul Hart but Jamie Hart that works at Argyle, see I told you I did not know these people I have altered the thread title accordingly. Thanks Jock and Hairy J for your info, so we employ an Agent do we ? Have I got that right ? What is his day to day role at Argyle ? I am hoping for an 'open' debate on this and not one tied down with fear of Data Protection etc. If he has knowingly undersold players for Argyle then why is he still on the pay-roll ( if he is ? )

His face crops up on stage at the Argyle pre-match piss-up ( sorry Fan Fest ) fairly often, ( thank you G.O.S. Photos ), if he is employed as an ' Agent ' then why do we need him ?

This is nothing more than trying to get to the bottom of comments made on other threads where others imply ( allege ) that our best players were undersold by Jamie Hart and others.

Phil.

TG - Nothing wrong with alleging that the players were sold for peanuts. There's a whole world of difference between accusing Jamie Hart of not doing his job properly and then insinuating that there was a "reason" for these players being sold at very cheap prices.

The "grateful to have a club view" is that we sold at rock bottom because we had no choice. If that's the case why no sell on clauses...?

In the year we got relegated from League 1 and went into administration we spent £66k on agents. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] I would suggest that the majority of that went to Jamie.

This is copied from our official admin report:

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"The summer transfer window opened in early May 2011 and the Joint Administrators
immediately instructed Hart Sport to explore the possibility of a sale of the club‟s senior
players. Acting upon Hart Sport‟s advice, Joe Mason was transferred to Cardiff City FC for
the sum of £150,000 and Yannick Bolasie was transferred to Bristol City FC for the sum of
£20,000.
6.7 The Joint Administrators also secured the sale of another of the Club‟s scholars, Lloyd Jones,
who was sold to Liverpool FC for the sum of £20,000."


Jamie has been implicated in some deals which from the outside look incestuous.

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The above is a particularly good example. One poster recently (I think talking about Hillsborough) said that we are raised to distinguish between right and wrong irrespective if it breaks any laws. What is the right thing to do? If the above story is true then it certainly mitigates Jamie from the incompetent tag doesn't it?

Which brings us back to the original question.

How did Jamie Hart, an experienced football agent, with extensive contacts and well versed in dealing with mulit-million pound deals think that the transfer fees for BWP, Noone, Mason and Bolasie make good business sense?

I think he was just brought in during the administration period for a short time to help with the fire sale.

I don't think he was ever employed by the club as such, but probably took a cut when the transfers he was involved in completed.

There were published fees in the P&A report, transfer fees received etc. but from memory I don't think his fees were mentioned. That could be wrong but I don't remember seeing them.

This could be because he negotiated the transfer and a fee for himself, so Argyle never paid him anything as such, but probably lost out on the transfer fee as his fee would have been paid by the buying club.

Maybe we should introduce him to Port Vale?

This report from the herald said we spent the third highest on agent fees in league2 last season (only Crawley and Swindon spending higher) at £78k. I would guess hart received the largest portion of this. Am I right in thinking that he also negotiates with players coming into the club?

Agent fees

It seems I have been getting my Harts confused..... whilst I did want to know who the guy was who is often mentioned in threads concerning the selling off of some of our better players, this Agent is nothing to do with the guy ( Paul Hart ) at the Fan Fests, happy to put that right and sorry to him for that confusion. This message putting me right has come from Jock ( thanks Jock ) and Chris Webb via Jock. So now I know !

I have also learned, as I wished to do so, who the guy is who sold on these players. Thanks to all who contacted me. If you do not ask you do not find out so I am now wiser. Sleep now.....

There is also Paul Hart who is I think secretary of the Argyle legends.

Argyle have legends?

Mock Cuncher wrote:

Argyle have legends?

Huyeaaah. Darren Purse? Has a mural and everyfink.

Back on topic.

Jamie Hart was on a retainer at te club of appx 10k per month. So was definitely 'employed'

Mrrapson wrote:

Back on topic.

Jamie Hart was on a retainer at te club of appx 10k per month. So was definitely 'employed'

Don't worry about being off topic Leigh, it's more fun.

Back on topic, £10k a month! Ridsdale needs taking outside and shooting. What a cnut he is. And to think some people cosied up to the slimy fucker and protested about what a great job he was doing, how he practically saved the club blah blah blah.

Anyone know if Ridsdale is being paid over 5 years or if he didn't have to defer his wages?

Fuckin leech.

Steady on Jock, you never know when we'll need him back to save us again.

You're out of touch Jocko.
Have you ever thought just who was taking all those millions of pounds out of the club listed as other expenses.
The trouble is in football, the owners, and everyone else for that matter, saw the ludicous money the players were on and have thought "I'll have a piece of that"
With a club like Argyle, what was to stop some chancers taking control with very little actual money up front and then handing out 'contracts' worth a nice packet to yourself, your own comapanies, and all yer mates and family. It has become a confetti industry with very little control, and often owners who have more invested as loans against the club's assets, at very nice interest rates thankyou, than actual old fashioned investment.

Charlie Wood wrote:

Steady on Jock, you never know when we'll need him back to save us again.

He was out walking on Great Mis Tor today.

Greenjock wrote:

Mrrapson wrote:

Back on topic.

Jamie Hart was on a retainer at te club of appx 10k per month. So was definitely 'employed'

Don't worry about being off topic Leigh, it's more fun.

Back on topic, £10k a month! Ridsdale needs taking outside and shooting. What a cnut he is. And to think some people cosied up to the slimy fucker and protested about what a great job he was doing, how he practically saved the club blah blah blah.

Anyone know if Ridsdale is being paid over 5 years or if he didn't have to defer his wages?

Fuckin leech.

Not 100% sure but I think hart and Ridsdale were paid as they went by the admin team as operating expenses. May be ring but that rings a bell.

Penzance wrote:

You're out of touch Jocko.
Have you ever thought just who was taking all those millions of pounds out of the club listed as other expenses.
The trouble is in football, the owners, and everyone else for that matter, saw the ludicous money the players were on and have thought "I'll have a piece of that"
With a club like Argyle, what was to stop some chancers taking control with very little actual money up front and then handing out 'contracts' worth a nice packet to yourself, your own comapanies, and all yer mates and family.

Don't be silly Penzance, those were all World Cup related outgoings, the previous board never took a penny! Ha, bollocks. You are bang on. Makes you sick. You've also got to ask what started our wage bill snowballing!

A warm front ? ( Cornish rhyming slang)

Penzance wrote:

You're out of touch Jocko.
Have you ever thought just who was taking all those millions of pounds out of the club listed as other expenses.
The trouble is in football, the owners, and everyone else for that matter, saw the ludicous money the players were on and have thought "I'll have a piece of that"
With a club like Argyle, what was to stop some chancers taking control with very little actual money up front and then handing out 'contracts' worth a nice packet to yourself, your own comapanies, and all yer mates and family.

My reading of the situation was always that Stapleton called Ridsdale in to try and help him recover as much money as possible before the bank accounts got stopped.

I expect the deal was something along the lines of, " Peter, it's gone tits up and I need a way of explaining away some large amounts of money quickly." "you can help yourself to whatever you can as well, but I want x amount first"

Being an accountant you would have thought he could've figured out something for himself, but then Ridsdale is much more experienced in the dark arts so I suppose it was calling in the top man.

Ridsdale must have pissed himself with excitement after that first conversation and then when he'd cleaned himself up he picks up the phone to his mates guilfoyle and Hart and says "feck me fellas, you're not gonna believe this but Christmas has come early, get your walking boots on and bring a sack each"