Investment will take time, says Hallett

Hallett confirmed earlier this year that he and the club board were looking to bring in additional funding, not just to boost options available to new head coach Wayne Rooney, but to bolster the whole infrastructure of the club.

Joined by Rooney and club chief executive Andrew Parkinson at a special fans’ forum held at Home Park on Thursday evening, Hallett was happy to outline the club’s vision for the future, but insisted such investment was ‘still taking it’s time’.

“The update is we have been looking for nearly a year for suitable investors,” said Hallett. “We are in talks with a couple of groups, one of which is quite well advanced, but these talks are very slow.

“We are clearly looking for someone who will buy into the values of the club, as well as buy into our overall strategy, particularly our investment strategy. However, it’s taking some time.

“At the moment we are bound by confidentiality rules around the prospective purchasers of new shares, as well as confidentiality rules with regards to the English Football League (EFL).  This will take some time for any potential new investor to go through the much more stringent owners’ and directors’ test, but we will let you know as soon as we can.”

Wallet also played down talk that the appointment of Rooney in May had not been influenced by potential future investment.

“I think we have been pretty clear,” added Hallett. “We hired Wayne because we want to win more football matches and that was the entire part of the consideration.

“We think Wayne is a person who has brought into our values, he has bought into our playing philosophy and he has bought into our overall club philosophy.

“Already he has made himself known to everyone at the club. We are firm believers the club that surrounds football squad, the club that surrounds the head coach is a critical part of success, and I think it’s fair to say Wayne buys into that.”

Indeed, Rooney outlined his own vision for the Pilgrims moving forward, insisting his move to Devon was one that really excited him.

“I came here in December with Birmingham and it was the first time I had been to Home Park,” said the former England international. “I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed walking into the stadium, I actually got lost in the car park, but when I spoke to Simon and Andrew for the first time, I was really excited with what I heard from them.

“I knew the playing squad having come up against them last season and I just felt it was a good challenge for me. Ultimately, working with good people is really important to me and after we talked, it wad clear my ambitions matched that of the club, so it was a great match.”

Meanwhile, Parkinson was able to address the long discussed topic of filling in the corners at Home Park, adding: “I used to be able to answer this really easily because I think four or five years ago when I was asked this question were getting crowds of 7,000 people coming in, so I used to say ‘Hang on, we are not filling the stadium.’ Of course, we are now.

“It is something that absolutely we need to consider. We know we are selling out 17,000 people every week, but it needs a proper business case for it as well. These things do not come cheap.

“Alongside the investors that Simon has talked about, we need to make sure we get the right return for that, and we are then able to investigate that into the football squad ultimately, and all the facilities as well, so we have to go through that process.

“I will just add to that it’s important to recognise we have actually required a number of parcels of lands as well over the last two or three years, so we need to consider everything in its totality really.”

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