Unfurnished football club for sale, suits ex-international
It was reported this week that Paul Miller, the former Tottenham defender, has been recruited by a leading merchant bank to head a division that will help professional footballers organise their bloated incomes. Things have grown a bit more sophisticated since the days when players bought a pub as a pension scheme: offshore hedge funds and convertible stock options are more the financial order of things.
We can only assume, then, that Miller was not involved in advising his old Spurs colleague Steve Archibald, who is on the verge of concluding a transaction which, traditionally, has all the fiscal rectitude of using £50 notes as emergency toilet tissue. Archibald is about to complete the purchase of Airdrieonians, the Scottish First Division Club that limped into liquidation last season.
"It's entirely my money. Don't even ask how much," Archibald explains, speaking this week from that hotbed of international finance, the Shyberry Excelsior stadium in Airdrie. "And no, I'm not happy with the possibility of losing the lot. I just felt that if I was coming in here doing the things I wanted it had to be my money I risked. If all goes well, I'll reap the benefits. And if it goes wrong, then there's only one person who will take the consequences."
The Scottish First Division is, financially, on another planet from the one Miller will be patrolling, that inhabited by Beckham, Bergkamp and Ken Bates's dividend payments. Here, profit is an entirely theoretical concept. As, apparently, is furniture.
Archibald arrived at his new domain last month to discover that, on the eve of the first match of the season, the previous chairman had turned up in the dead of night with a removal van and taken away what few assets remained at the club.
"Sofas in the players' lounge, office furniture, the lot," says Archibald, who was used in his playing career to the elegant surrounds of the Nou Camp. "In a way it was quite funny, but it gives you an idea of how the place used to be run."
Presumably standing up as he speaks on the phone, Archibald none the less appears in good spirits as he talks about his new purchase, using terms such as "project" and "attractive package" where others might have preferred "barge pole". What was it that persuaded him to leave his handsome home in Barcelona, where he has lived and prospered in business since retiring as a player, to risk all in Lanarkshire? Is he a diehard Airdrie fan?
'A bsolutely not," he says. "I deliberately chose a club I had no association with. If you buy something you love, you lose all perspective. It can be very dangerous financially. No, I was looking for an opportunity like this for some time. We have an excellent new stadium here which was a big attraction. Plus I believe, business wise, Scotland is the land of opportunity."
A view not shared by Celtic and Rangers, who seem as determined as ever to cut their ties with their homeland and make their future overseas in an Atlantic League. Perhaps that was what tempted the former Spur, the chance to become the premier force in Scottish club football.
"I haven't made any promises like that," he says. "We're very wary of raising expectations which we can't fulfil. Our short-term vision is just to stabilise the club, to produce an attractive package on the park which will get the fans back in and provide financial solidity."
To that end, Archibald has been using his Barcelona contacts to bring in an assortment of Spanish and South American players - 10 so far - whose performance against Raith Rovers in a 1-1 draw last week was described by Scottish Television as "sexy stuff".
"Well, they moved the ball around on the deck," says the new man, drily. "Which can be said to be unusual here."
Nevertheless, he seems pleased with the critical response to his side - after all, he has been coaching them himself. But you have to wonder if a player of his reputation could not have found himself a managerial position without the necessity of buying a club first.
"My intention is not to be the coach, I'm just doing it in the meantime," he says. "When you buy a club, you've got to get the right people round you. When we find the right coach, he will come in."
In the meantime he is doing everything, from working out how to spring the offside trap to negotiating with creditors. "Every day I'm going through a mountain of stuff," he says. "Leases for this and that. The old administration was in hock up to its eyeballs. Even the pictures on the wall were leased. And the plants in the reception area. They owned nothing."
Except the furniture.
"That's true, they owned that," he says. "Still do."