BLOG: Don't expect instant riches
We do not yet know how much money the Anglo-Japanese-American consortium which is effectively in charge of the Pilgrims will be making available to Argyle’s manager, Paul Sturrock, for team-strengthening purposes.
We were never going to find out on day one, of course, and nor will we ever get a definitive answer to direct questions on such matters. Expecting such information to be put straight in the public domain is totally unrealistic.
We may have to wait until early 2011, when the accounts for the 2009-10 financial year are likely to be published, to find out how much money the company run by Argyle directors Yasuaki Kagami and George Synan has put into the Pilgrims, over and above what KKShonan has paid for its 38 per-cent stake in the club.
The same applies to KKC, the firm set up by new chairman Sir Roy Gardner and director Keith Todd, which has a 13 per-cent stake.
That sort of information might be available in the future. For now, though, supporters remain in the dark – and that is inevitable. No football club manager, or chairman, of sound mind will ever tell all his rivals exactly how much cash he has in his transfer-market and salaries kitty. Doing so would be commercially idiotic.
Guesses, educated or otherwise, will have to be attempted.
There is one point which can be safely made. Any fans who expect the Pilgrims to be transformed into Championship promotion contenders straight away by a huge injection of funds from the new regime will be disappointed. That just is not going to happen.
What has happened at Home Park this summer is nothing like what has happened, at a higher level, within the past year at Manchester City, or before that at Chelsea. Sturrock will not have bulging bags of cash to throw around. The Pilgrims are not about to join the Championship’s financial big-hitters.
We have had a pledge from Gardner, however. Argyle’s new chairman has said that, over time, the new board intends to increase the club’s playing budget. That objective will be part of the five-year plan which the directors will be drawing up during the second half of 2009.
It is clear that the board expects increased commercial revenue to contribute to the planned expansion of the playing budget. The money, or at least some of it, will have to be earned. How that will work out in a time of recession remains to be seen.
If the transfer of power in the boardroom had not happened, it is understood that Sturrock would have been obliged to operate with a budget for 2009-10 was roughly £1.5 million less than last season’s figure. The manager – and the fanbase – will be hoping for a revision of that figure, but he still knows that he needs to reduce the size of his first-team squad.
In time, the Scotsman should be given a bigger pot to play with, but, on the day that the boardroom was restructured, he was still talking about the need to part with players before he can concentrate on inbound full transfers. It also seems likely that loan transfers will play a big part in the Pilgrims’ progress this season, as was the case last term.
So, to sum up, supporters would be unwise to expect Argyle’s brave new world to be immediately very different to the old state of affairs. The club still has a playing budget which is dwarfed by those available at some rival Championship clubs. It still has an antiquated main stand, plus inadequate training and commercial facilities.
Putting everything right will take time, but at least the Pilgrims do seem to be in better shape to pursue that objective. Every boardroom at every football clubs needs to undergo a rejuvenation process from time to time, and that is what has happened at Home Park this summer.
Even if Argyle are not about to become a great deal richer in cash terms, they should be in better long-term shape. They have a chairman who is used to ‘dining at the top table’, in football and in business. Gardner is a former Manchester United plc chairman, and he has worked at the top of the gas, electricity and catering industries.
In Todd, they have a director who has what may prove to be very productive expertise in the telecommunications and internet commerce industries. Thanks to Kagami and Synan – and club president Yasuhiko Okudera – they have access to Japanese sporting and commercial opportunities.
Just how much benefit the Pilgrims will gain from the changes in their boardroom remains to be seen, but they ought to be in better shape to ride out the recession.
To put it bluntly, the old board needed bailing out.
Former chairman Paul Stapleton, who is now deputy chairman, admitted earlier this year that Argyle suffered from significant cash-flow problems last season, because of the unexpectedly large shortfall in income when compared to expenditure.
At least the Pilgrims can now be more optimistic about staying afloat, as a business and as a Championship football team. They have the potential to do much more than just stay afloat, but patience may well be needed.
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