Tuesday 10 January 2017 20:54, UK
Millwall chief executive Steve Kavanagh speaks exclusively to Sky Sports ahead of a meeting when Lewisham Council will decide whether to approve a compulsory purchase order of land surrounding The Den.
Lewisham Council is currently considering purchasing plots of land around the Sky Bet League One club's stadium in Bermondsey and selling them to property developers, Renewal.
A vote was due to be taken on the issue on Wednesday 11 January, but the Council have postponed the meeting until early February "on legal advice", according to Sky sources.
If the CPO is confirmed, it will see the land currently used for The Den's car park and the Millwall Community Trust fall into the hands of the offshore-registered company.
Renewal are proposing to build a 2,400-housing development and have insisted any scheme would benefit Millwall.
Millwall are opposed to the proposal due to fears over Renewal's long-term ideas for the area and have previously drawn up their own plans for a £140m redevelopment.
Read on to find out what the Millwall CEO had to say ahead of what could be a pivotal day in the club's long-term future…
What will be the implications for Millwall if Lewisham Council approve the compulsory purchase order for land around The Den?
This is a stage in a long complex process, so there are many more stages. If that happens then in all likelihood the next stage will be a public inquiry because we will contest this through the right channels and the right ways because we don't think this is in the public interest. In the long term if it carries on in this way, as I have explained and articulated already to the press, the club would have to explore all the avenues open to it to ensure the club is commercially viable in the future. One of those options would be the possibility that the club would relocate out of the borough of Lewisham.
If Lewisham Council gives its approval, as you have said, the Government is likely to appoint an inspector to hold a public inquiry before a final decision is made on whether to confirm the CPO or not. That process may take a year. How will the uncertainty impact upon the club?
It's not good is it? It's a difficult situation for a club finding itself in a position where it is having constant arguments with its local council. In my experience, councils and clubs should be working hand in glove to benefit the local community. The club is an important part of that community, it's the fabric of that very community and we should be working together to develop the Community Trust, develop the work we are doing, to advance the club and how we all work and engage together. That would be extremely difficult to do during that year or whatever period that takes whilst we are effectively arguing with our landlords and the local council. That can't be good for football, that can't be good for Millwall and that can't be good for the borough of Lewisham. It certainly isn't a good place for the Millwall Community Trust.
The club has local people, local councillors and local MPs backing its case, why do you think the council is still supporting the CPO?
The Liberal Democrats national party leader, Tim Farron, has come out with support for the club's position. FA chairman Greg Clarke has written to our chairman and offered his support and said that this scheme isn't in the public interest. Shaun Harvey, the chief executive of the Football League, has also written to us with support. The local MPs are supporting the club. Many local councillors and even the council's overview and scrutiny panel are against the CPO. The panel called in the proposed CPO for a review and said that they didn't believe it was in the public interest. So to answer the question, why are they doing it? I really don't know. When you have so much weight of opposition to the scheme and the CPO, not just from local people, but also nationally, football fans from clubs across the country are against this because they can see it is not in the interests of football or the local communities in which clubs exist.
What support has Millwall had in fighting the CPO from other clubs and the football world in general?
Since this has become a much more public issue nationally, particularly following our FA Cup victory against Bournemouth, and given the spectre of the fact that the club would have to consider relocating, support for the club's position from football fans across the country has been phenomenal. Everyone has picked up on the issue and I have not heard one voice say, 'This is a good idea'. Fans, politicians, councillors, everyone is out there saying, 'Why would a council not want to work with this club?'
There are, unfortunately, past examples of councils not working with their club. Wimbledon were a great example of that. Look what happened there, it resulted in the club moving and playing in Milton Keynes. God forbid this got anywhere near that situation, but clubs are concerned when these sort of situations happen. Often, down the road, councils come to realise that this isn't in their interests and actively support their clubs. They work with their clubs to support and embed them back into their communities so as to repair the damage that has been done.
This council has a chance to ensure that damage isn't done and to ensure, in their own words, that the club is at the heart of any proposed redevelopment. Unfortunately, what is missing from the council, are those actions that really have to follow the words.
What will Lewisham Council lose if Millwall are forced to leave?
We have a substantial issue around our academy, in the way that it is structured and the fact it would be extremely difficult for us to carry on. Therefore, the aspirations of youngsters to become professional footballers through their local club could be taken away. The Millwall Community Trust could find itself very easily and very quickly relocated out of the borough because we will not allow our badge, our brand and our Community Trust, which we absolutely want out there to further the good community work we do, to be used under the umbrella of another organisation. So, the council could lose our Community Trust and a report last year showed that the work they do in the borough is valued at £7m-a-year. That could all be lost. There is also the uproar among the supporters. They are local people who vote locally in elections and they will not be happy if their club continues to be pressurised and put upon in this way.
On the idea of having to relocate if the CPO is confirmed, what is the club's view on this possibility?
We would have to explore every single possibility. We would have to look at where the club could be financially viable. We all know that income streams in the Premier League are growing and growing, whereas in the lower leagues you are heavily reliant on owners. The Millwall chairman, John Berylson, has invested over £50m into Millwall, into the area and into the fabric of the local community and yet he is not being considered as appropriate to partner, let alone have a conversation with as regards to the development of the area.
How confident are you of the club being able to defeat the council's plans?
I am extremely concerned that the council and the cabinet have put themselves in a very entrenched position, where they have strongly sided with Renewal and its employees, who contain ex-council employees. Because they've put themselves into that position and now their colours are nailed to that mast, I think they're finding it difficult to step away and realise that actually the fastest way to deliver regeneration to the area in a constructive and collaborative way is to come back to the table and look to work afresh with the club.
I've only been at Millwall for two months. I've come into this new and I've called for council officers to come and talk to me, to come and engage with me and, as of today, none have, other than asking some very directed questions that they will not expand upon and explore in more detail. They just want a very narrow answer, but what they need to do is to come back to the table because that will be the very quickest way the regeneration happens with a company and a club that has been in the borough since 1910 and that sits at the fabric of the community.
