Plymouth Argyle have asked the dozen remaining players to defer wages for their eighth consecutive month. Peter Ridsdale has been chairman at Home Park for seven days and on top of another wage deferral; new signing Liam Dickinson has left the club for personal reasons after one week; I suspect that it’s either a dislike for the chairman or being asked to sign a wage deferral a week after arriving in Plymouth. This really doesn’t bode well for the future of Argyle when a new signing leaves the club a week after joining. There is only four weeks remaining before the start of the season and there is no sign of things improving under Ridsdale’s regime, what happened to the £250,000 the club received for Joe Mason; have the non-playing and backroom staff been paid?
On the football side of things, Peter Reid has given trials to two more players, former Barnet goalkeeper Jake Cole and French midfielder Ladjie Soukouna. Another couple of free agents hoping to relaunch their footballing careers, will they make it into the team; who knows but with time running out and Peter Reid needing 20 players to start the season, it’s a real possibility, at this point beggars can’t be choosers, Reid has to take what he can get, Argyle is hardly a prime prospect at this time. Two youth players have been given professional contracts; defender Jamie Richards and Luke Young have been handed three and one year contracts respectively!
Plymouth are in talks with the Football League about getting their golden share back. The Football League has concerns over Kevin Heaney’s involvement with Bishop International Limited who have agreed to purchase the club and assets while simultaneously selling the football club to Ridsdale for £1, no individual is allowed to be involved with two football clubs at the same time, Heaney is currently owner and chairman of Truro City FC. Obviously if the Football League does not ratify the takeover the club, that’ll be the end of Argyle which might be for the best; start again and rebuild from scratch given the diabolical way that Brendan Guilfoyle has handled the administration process. Clearly Bishop International doesn’t have the money to complete the deal right now; that’s proved by the eighth wage deferral, the agreement suggests that Bishop International would bankroll the club for the first year (really? it doesn’t look very promising then does it?) Yes it is too late for another bidder now with so little time remaining; Bishop International, Guilfoyle and Ridsdale have dragged it out so long that there is no other option.