PLYMOUTH ARGYLE executive director Keith Todd has denied he and chairman Sir Roy Gardner are "profiting" from a Home Park mortgage arranged via their company Mastpoint.

Mr Todd told The Herald they were receiving no "fees or margins" from the arrangement, set up to help the football club out of a financial hole.

He was responding to a story in the Guardian's sport section which ran under the headline "Gardner still profiting from Plymouth's plight".

The story said Sir Roy was "profiting from the club's financial difficulties" as a shareholder and director of Mastpoint.

But Mr Todd, who called the headline "disappointing", said the only way he and Sir Roy would benefit financially was as shareholders in the club.

"If Plymouth Argyle is successful, we will be successful as shareholders," he said.

Mr Todd explained that Mastpoint was a company set up to hold the Plymouth Argyle shares belonging to him, Sir Roy and others including high-profile US businessman Joe Plumeri.

But when the club hit the financial rocks last season, Mastpoint was used as a "mechanism" to raise cash.

The firm was used to attract "long-term investors" and "help finance a second mortgage" over the club's Home Park ground, now owned by a newly formed property company.

Mr Todd and Sir Roy acted as "security trustees" on behalf of those who provided the money.

Mr Todd said the Mastpoint arrangement, set up last December, was necessary because lending terms offered by banks were "outrageous" and Mastpoint was able to obtain money much more cheaply.

It did this by borrowing from "high net worth individuals".

Mastpoint then loaned the cash to Argyle as the second mortgage.

"The club has been losing money, that's no secret," said Mr Todd. "What we have done, and had to do, is continue to provide the finance to the club to enable us to develop some plans we have for the club going forward.

"The second mortgage is a means of helping the club borrow money more cheaply."

He said neither he nor Sir Roy were paid by the club or Mastpoint.

"Nothing comes to us," he stressed. "It's cost me personally in time and effort."

He added: "It's difficult for football clubs to raise finance — it's not the most attractive investment for many people."

But he said: "Secured lending is low-cost — it makes sense to provide that finance.

"We were able to reduce the cost of that financing.

"We made no fee, no margin, on any of that finance as shareholders of Mastpoint."

Plymouth Argyle was relegated from the Championship to League One, the third tier of English football, last season.

In 2008/9, it recorded a loss of £2.8million.

The Guardian reported the club already had a £2million property loan before the second mortgage was arranged.

In April, Argyle shareholders voted to sell Home Park to Home Park Properties Ltd (HPPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Plymouth Argyle Football Company (Holdings) Ltd, for £7.5million.