Pilgrim's Regress: Deadlines, Assurances and Endless Questions at Argyle

Tuesday, 16 August, was supposed to be the day. It was the deadline set by Plymouth Argyle’s administrator, Brendan Guilfoyle, for the club’s preferred bidders, Bishop International Limited (BIL), to finally provide proof of the £6 million required to complete their purchase. Instead, what Guilfoyle received from the solicitors of BIL frontman Kevin Heaney was not proof of funds, but something altogether more nebulous: “evidence of a funding line.”

For the long-suffering staff at Home Park, some of whom have received only one full wage packet on time since January, this latest failure to deliver tangible cash means another request to defer their salaries. For supporters, it was just another missed deadline in a saga that has dragged on since May, when BIL was first supposed to have demonstrated it had the money to buy the club.

In a remarkable interview with BBC Radio Devon’s Gordon Sparks, Guilfoyle declared himself “content” with the situation. The statement provoked an incredulous response from Sparks, who reminded the administrator that he had been in court just two weeks prior, attempting unsuccessfully to force BIL to pay £230,000 for August’s salaries. Guilfoyle dismissed the court action as a “misunderstanding,” insisting it did not signal a lack of confidence in the purchaser.

His confidence, it seems, is built on a single, flimsy foundation: assurances.

The Currency of Reassurance

“We’re confident he’s going to come up with the money based on the assurances he’s given us… I speak to him on a daily basis,” Guilfoyle told the BBC. This was a near-identical refrain to one he offered on 5 August, when he said, “I’m speaking to them almost daily now and I’m receiving assurances that they will do it.”

The word “assurance” has become the devalued currency of this administration. Guilfoyle appears powerless in a process he is meant to command, seemingly unable to protect the club’s employees yet beholden to the very property developers, both old and new, who stand to gain from separating the football club from its valuable land assets. When pressed by Sparks on the need for bridging loans if Heaney truly possessed the funds, Guilfoyle deflected. “I can’t discuss the affairs of BIL and Kevin Heaney because he asked me not to,” he said, before falling back on his familiar script: “He is telling me and assuring me he’s going to do the deal.”

This pattern of platitudes in the face of pertinent questions defined the entire five-minute exchange. The more specific the query, the vaguer the administrator’s response became. It is a troubling performance from a man who has previously overseen administrations at Luton Town and Crystal Palace.

Unenforceable Agreements

The entire process appears to be built on agreements that are not worth the paper they are written on. The “exclusivity agreement,” for which Guilfoyle was supposed to charge BIL £1 million, was granted without a penny changing hands. Now, the subsequent “sale and purchase agreement” has proven equally toothless. A court ruling confirmed it places “no obligation for the buyer to provide further funding” for the payment of staff wages.

These agreements were intended to fund the administration and secure a legitimate sale. Instead, they have left Guilfoyle unable to compel the preferred bidder to meet its most basic financial responsibilities.

His evasiveness extended to the Football League’s involvement. After the league’s board “raised several concerns” on 11 August, Guilfoyle insisted the questions were “not sinister, it’s standard.” Yet he refused to detail what those concerns were. One does not have to look far for potential issues. The league may well be reflecting on the wisdom of selling a club to a man, Heaney, who is due in court next month on fraud charges relating to his time as chairman of Truro City FC. Heaney, for his part, also chairs Truro City FC.

Guilfoyle’s performance reached its nadir when he refused to commit to a firm new deadline, stating only, “We’re trying to get completion by the end of this week.” He then bizarrely quoted the Labour leader Ed Miliband before offering a strange image of his efforts to get the deal done: “I’m kicking people in the office as we speak, almost, to get the Football League consent.”

Another Week, Another Deadline

The week ended, predictably, with another missed deadline. On Friday, Peter Ridsdale, the proposed new club owner, was told by Guilfoyle to secure Football League approval for Argyle’s business plan for the season. Ridsdale missed it.

Guilfoyle has given him another week.

Amid the administrative chaos, there is at least the distraction of football. This afternoon, Plymouth Argyle’s team and their supporters travel to Kent to face Gillingham. For ninety minutes, at least, they can focus on events on the pitch rather than the seemingly endless turmoil off it.