A year after St Johnstone were officially put on the market, there remains no buyer on the horizon.
Owner Geoff Brown has revealed that there hasn’t been a lack of interest in the Perth club over the last 12 months.
But nobody has come “remotely close” to tabling an offer to buy him out.
“I don’t have anyone,” Brown told Courier Sport.
“The problem for a sale of St Johnstone is that we have so much value in assets and somebody who’s buying a football club doesn’t really want those assets.
“That’s a big problem.
“When you’re sitting on 22 acres of ground and you’ve got a stadium that’s bought and paid for and doesn’t go into the accounts, that’s a different scenario to buying something that’s turning over £6 million or £7 million a year.
“I’ve had quite a number of people interested – Americans – but at this point there hasn’t been anyone remotely close to putting an offer in.
“If it sells, it sells. If it doesn’t, I’ll just keep it going.
“We’re looking for a market price and, as I’ve said, I want to gift the money to the (Saints in the Community) Trust for a sporting hub.
“I’m saying: ‘Whatever you’re giving me, I’m giving away’.
“But there’s no way I’m giving the land away.”
Valuable land
Brown put the value of the McDiarmid Park site into financial context.
“The land along the road at Almond Valley sold for housing a year past June,” he explained.
“They got five bids from PLCs for in excess of £1 million an acre.
“If you look at that, the alternative use of McDiarmid Park would probably be housing.”
Brown, who took Saints from Muirton Park to McDiarmid in 1989, is now 80.
A project as big as relocating his football club for a second time certainly isn’t on his agenda.
But if he was an owner looking at the long-term, would another move be something he’d contemplate?
“Probably, yes,” said Brown.
“The park is too big. Far too big.
“We’ll struggle to ever have 6,000 home fans in the ground.
“Right now our maintenance bill is hundreds of thousands.
“If a stadium is 34-years-old, that’s what you would expect.
“There’s going to be development in Perth West and big development at Bertha Park.
“There are a lot of areas that could accommodate something like that.
“But I’m not interested. I’ve run out of energy! We’ve not got that sort of interest.”
‘Game-changer’
Dual ownership is an issue back on the agenda in Scottish football.
With Bournemouth owner, Bill Foley, closing in on an agreement to secure a minority stake in Hibs, the SFA could be asked to relax their rules at a board meeting later this week.
Article 13 prohibits club owners from becoming involved in the management or administration of another team without the prior written permission of the board.
The SFA will consider any request on a case by case basis.
At the moment, anyone who owns or has an interest in another club can invest a maximum of a 24.9% shareholding.
Brown senses the winds of change blowing through the corridors of power and the possibility of dual ownership would be a potential “game-changer” for St Johnstone.
“It would be a game-changer, there’s no question about that,” he said.
“One of the problems we’ve got is if someone has got ownership or part-ownership of another club in Europe they’re not a fit and proper person for the SFA.
“That limits you.”
Does Brown think relaxation of the rules is on the cards?
“Yeah,” he said. “I think that’s the way it’s going.”
And would it be to the benefit of the professional game north of the border?
“You see the figures that have just been agreed for the TV deal in England,” said Brown. “They’ve got £6.7 billion.
“In the Scottish Cup the TV fee is something like £26,000 per club.
“There’s a lot of money in the UK but not much of it in Scotland.
“If the rules were changed I think it would be spread around more.”
Still losing money
Saints posted a £1.5 million loss in their most recent annual accounts, with budget-cutting the consequence.
“We’re still losing a lot of money,” said Brown.
“That won’t change quickly – I don’t think it will ever change.
“Look at last Sunday.
“It’s a situation every club has when you play the Old Firm.
“In the case of St Johnstone, you’re allocating 4,700 away tickets and you finish up with a gate of 6,700.
“There were only 2,000 people there from St Johnstone.
“If you sold another side you’d be talking about grossing up between another 90 and 100 grand.
“Last year after the debacle of the Rangers game we had a home game against Celtic and 84% of the season tickets didn’t turn up.”
What next?
Moving home won’t be the next big development for St Johnstone under Brown’s watch.
What could be?
“The realistic next stage is to put some real money into trying to develop younger players with a view to transfer deals,” said Brown.
“In Scotland we’re miles behind.
“Just look at how many transfers there have been in the last year of young Scottish players – not many, if any.”
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