Plymouth Argyle: James Brent 'not competent' for day-to-day running

Plymouth Argyle owner James Brent has revealed he spends just half a day per week on club business and is not "competent" to run it on a daily basis.

But he says the right people are in place to ensure it becomes successful.

"I'm not competent to run that football club. I'm not a football person, with that experience.

"I think I'm a competent chairman of it, to provide strategic direction and challenge governance of it, and that is what I do," he told BBC South West.

Brent completed a takeover of Argyle three years ago after the club went into administration and guided them away from the prospect of relegation out of the Football League.

But the businessman has a number of other interests in the south west of England, as chairman of Plymouth University and the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and owner of clothing brand Saltrock, and he is also leading huge redevelopment projects at Oldway Mansion at Paignton and the Plymouth Pavilions.

"We came into Argyle as a football club which, before we took over, had lost £8m on £10m of turnover.

"The turnover fell to £4m because it collapsed down the leagues with consecutive relegations.

"We've turned that into a break-even position on £4m of turnover while improving the football squad," he said.

"When I first had an interest in Argyle, we had one point from the first nine games.

"Everyone told me the club would be relegated out of the Football League, we have got the club back to financial stability and competing for promotion, that is success."

However, Brent admitted he did not know when a new grandstand at Home Park will be built.

Work to replace the Mayflower Stand was due to start this summer as part of a £50m development at the Higher Home Park area which will also include a cinema and ice-rink.

"The Higher Home Park development, which went significantly beyond the new grandstand, that is not feasible for the moment," he added.

"So what we are looking at is a Plan B, which is to do the grandstand first, which is the bit which is directly relevant to the football club and do the rest of the leisure development second.

"We are in the latter stages of negotiations with a partner institution to build it, we're moving that as quickly as we can, but I'm not going to make the mistake of committing to another date and being held to account, as soon as we have finalised those negotiations, hopefully positively, we will announce that."