Despite the promotion of this free event focusing on Fowler’s property portfolio in the North West, the only contribution that that I could see from the former Liverpool star was his face on a couple of picture boards and a brief video that he had recorded, badly.

The academy was set up by Tigrent to help new or current property investors develop their housing portfolio. Robbie Fowler had used the company when he decided to start investing in property – there’s the link.

The event was attended by about 40 people and keynote speaker Liam Gilmore wasn’t scared to tell the audience that he was there to sell us something.

Gilmore announced that there was to be a three day training course that would cost applicants £997, as well £497 on books and DVDs plus a further £250 for a ‘strategy phone call’.

He then went on to explain how now is a great chance for people to start investing in properties with the words ‘action’ and ‘opportunity’ presented in giant, green letters on a screen on the back wall.

Gilmore added: “If you don’t have the money this is not a problem, we have a solution.” This is a word he kept going back to. “The solution is to put it on your credit card; this is what smart people do.”

Gilmore kept referring back to Robbie Fowler throughout his two-hour presentation with phrases such as ‘you need to take action, this is what Robbie did and he is now a multi-millionaire’ and ‘do you want to be financially stable and secure your families future? Well this is what Robbie wanted and he has achieved this, thanks to Tigrent’.

Finally he tried to see how many people would sign up for the £997 ‘asset’ course and from what I could see only a handful went to the back of the room to do so. This was even after he offered to include all the books, DVDs and ‘valuable’ strategy phone call within the price.