BAIRN AGAIN
Top six the target for Falkirk as new owner promises to revitalise club
MARK CAMPBELL last night outlined his ambitious plan to make Falkirk one of Scotland’s top-six clubs within four years.
The New York-based businessman is in detailed negotiations with the bairns board over completing a £500,000 takeover by the end of the month.
but following months of talks with Sunderland owner Stuart Donald, the englishman has shelved plans to turn Falkirk into a feeder club for the english giants — for now.
After persuading former Celtic scouting chief John park to oversee the club’s football operation, Campbell will now focus his time and money on a ten-year plan to:
Expand the capacity of the Falkirk Stadium to 12,000.
Build up a youth academy from scratch after
funding was pulled from the old facility in 2017.
And build a team capable of pushing for a top-six place in the premiership.
Speaking to Sportsmail last night, Campbell said: ‘Falkirk is currently languishing in tier three and is not where it should be.
‘Falkirk is between edinburgh and Glasgow, it has no religious ties or baggage and over the years has produced some fantastic players that have gone on to do very well.
‘We need to invest in the team and get out of league One as quickly as we possibly can.
‘We need to get back into the premiership.
‘In Scotland at the minute you have Celtic, Rangers, Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen.
‘but the sixth-placed team is either Kilmarnock or Motherwell or a St Johnstone.
‘I think there is a vacancy there for a top-six team and that’s what we want to aim at for Falkirk in the coming years.
‘We want to aim for cup runs and potentially european runs.’
earmarked for a return to Celtic under Neil lennon, park was poised to become director of football at Sunderland had Campbell’s takeover plan succeeded.
‘I brought John park on board because his track record at Celtic and Hibs is outstanding,’ he added. ‘I wanted someone to work with the manager to get some players not necessarily on everybody’s radar and give them a platform to play at Falkirk before moving them on.
‘John has a realistic plan where we should aim to be back in the Scottish premiership within three to four years.
‘This is certainly not a short-term project. This is a seven-to-ten-year project for us and we are not going to rush or jump into bankrupting the club. It’s a steady rebuilding job.
‘Falkirk needs a bit of magic dust sprinkled on it and we want to engage with the community to make it shine.’
Campbell held extensive talks with Sunderland owner Donald over a takeover of the Wearside giants. Admitting that deal has now been placed on hold after talks broke down, he insisted cash was never the issue.
‘Far from it,’ he added. ‘We spent a lot of time working on the Sunderland project and I have to hold my hat up to the current owners of the club, Stuart Donald and Charlie Methven.
‘I have a very good relationship with Stuart and a very good relationship with managing director Neil Fox.
‘like us, they were really keen to get the deal over the line. but we fell short and it was not for the want of trying.
‘It was certainly nothing to do with finance or money. There was just a few things that couldn’t happen.
‘You can’t expect a deal to be done quickly for a club with a turnover of £160million.
‘When you are dealing with a club like Falkirk with a turnover of £2.8m, it’s going to be quicker.
‘The aim was to buy both clubs and manage and run both clubs.’ Admitting english Football league and SFA dual ownership rules were a potential barrier to owning both clubs, Campbell’s plan echoed the partick Thistle takeover proposals put forward by barnsley owners Chien lee and paul Conway.
‘There were dual ownership governance issues we knew we would come up against,’ he admitted. ‘but we would have worked something round that.
‘We were very open with the Scottish FA and english Football league when we started this process. All credit to them, they were great as well.
‘Would I look again at the idea? You can never say never.
‘You never know what’s on the horizon in the coming years and it would be foolish for me to say otherwise.
‘but, at the moment, we have a new Falkirk stand to build, we have an academy which we plan to build on the grounds over the next three years. We have another facility we plan on the other side of the ground as well.
‘We need to get this club to be ready for the Scottish premier league.
‘It’s not going to happen overnight, but when we get there, we will be ready.’
portrayed in reports as an American stockbroker, Campbell was born and raised in england, but lives and works in New York. Insisting he plans to base himself in Scotland after scouring the SpFl for a club to buy, he added: ‘I believe that if you are going to run a football club, you need to be there day in and day out.
‘We’ve been to see bolton and saw a few clubs and were picky about who we got involved with.
‘The most important factor was the fans.
‘We went to a few clubs where we didn’t get the connection with the fans and in total we spoke to three other Scottish clubs.
‘Falkirk was the one. Falkirk fans have been through some tough times but they will be impressed with our ideas.
‘We will be transparent and tell them about our ideas.
‘We want to be ambitious, we want to get a youth academy back, we want to get a reserve team back, we need to get the stand built. There’s a lot of work to be done, the team on the pitch will need investment and that’s what it will get. And the rest of the work will come in the next two to three years.’