Plymouth Argyle (foto: Getty Images)
Plymouth Argyle is fighting for survival in the second English league. This is a special club, much smaller than its competitors and also financially worse off. The club also has a Slovenian touch, as the new coach is represented by a Slovenian agency that also represents Benjamin Šešek.
With a population of around 300,000, Plymouth is the largest English city that has never had a first-tier team. The local club Plymouth Argyle is unique in many ways. Geographically, it is the most remote professional club in England, as the city is located in Devon, in the far southwest of the country.
It is also the only professional English football club with the rather unusual name Argyle. This is a pattern used on clothing such as socks or sweaters, consisting of diamond shapes of different colors. The fact that the club's colours are green and white is also unusual for English football, as green is inextricably linked to Ireland in Britain and you won't find many clubs using it as their primary colour.
Argyle also stands out in many ways compared to other English second-division clubs. The Championship is an expensive league that requires a large financial investment if you want to be competitive. Most clubs therefore operate at a large loss in the hope that this will pay off if they are promoted to the Premier League. The fight for the top of the table is also complicated by so-called parachute payments, rich financial "rewards" for clubs that are relegated from the first division and automatically have an extraordinary financial advantage over other second-division clubs.
However, Plymouth's majority owner and chairman Simon Hallett denies any financial machinations and irrational borrowing by the club. Argyle almost went bankrupt in 2011, so Hallett, who has been on the board since 2016 and became majority owner six years ago, does not intend to let something like that happen again.
Plymouth has recently attracted the attention of the English media, mainly due to the failures of "star" coach Wayne Rooney, the viral video of the introductory speech of new coach Miron Muslić and the sensational victory against Liverpool in the FA Cup. But even more interesting is the way the club is managed, which is quite different from its second-tier competitors. Chairman Hallett is not interested in success at all costs; he is primarily interested in sustainable development.
The club's long-term goal is to regularly place in the upper part of the second-tier table. They are currently quite far from this goal. Last season they barely survived in the league, and this year they are again struggling to stay in the league and are currently not looking too good for them. But this does not make Hallett and the board panic. They are well aware of the current financial constraints within which they operate.
Home Park is the third smallest stadium in the league, with 18,173 seats, the second lowest wage bill in the league, and just 66% of the club's total budget goes to first-team wages, the lowest in the league. But last year they made a loss of just £2.4m, which is remarkably small in a league where clubs are borrowing heavily to chase the Premier League dream. "I'm a firm believer in building a club that is resilient to all odds," says Hallett. "And if you're in debt, you're on a fragile foundation."
Plymouth does invest regularly in player transfers, but far less than their rivals. Hallett is interested in the growth of the club as a whole and sees his role as chairman quite differently from most English club owners: "Football clubs are not conventional investment vehicles, but the people who invest in clubs are increasingly people who invest in conventional investment vehicles. I find that a bit strange. Things like that don't usually end well."
Although their budget is one of the smallest in the league, they have made a great effort to diversify their revenue base. The stadium is in use seven days a week, not just on matchdays, and they have also bought a number of other buildings and land in the area to generate profits. The next step is to invest in a training centre and academy, which will cost them around £12m. The potential relegation to League One will not jeopardise these plans, as the club operates within realistic financial limits and does not borrow.
Hallett is in the process of finding new investors to help him sustainably develop the club, but he is extremely selective: "We want someone like me who understands that this is a business and also a community asset. We want someone who accepts that, but it is difficult to convince people who are in business to accept below-average returns to help the club."
Considering that Plymouth is the only major club in the region, it has a fairly large fan base. Between 16,000 and 17,000 people regularly attend League One games, and 5,000 people are currently on the waiting list for season tickets. This is certainly a solid foundation for the club to continue to grow.
Regardless of whether Simon Hallett manages to find an investor and regardless of whether Miron Muslić manages to keep the team in the second league, Plymouth Argyle will remain on solid and rational foundations and will have all the conditions in the future to fulfill its long-term goal – to become a stable second-division team.