By Stephen 18
November 11 2004

There was always going to be only one thing on the agenda at Tuesday morning’s AGM. Performances on the pitch, break-even charts and attendances all paled into insignificance given the Den power debate doing the rounds off the field of play. There was always going to be only one thing on the agenda at Tuesday morning’s AGM.

Performances on the pitch, break-even charts and attendances all paled into insignificance given the Den power debate doing the rounds off the field of play.

The countdown has begun to discover who will succeed chairman Theo Paphitis at the helm of Millwall Football Club.

Apart from the arrival of Lonestar Partners LP onto the scene, there are few clues as to who will form the identity of the new supremo.

Whispers that Dennis Wise, Ray Wilkins and Gianluca Vialli were planning a joint raid on the £5million valued club were dismissed as “rubbish” by manager Wise last week, leaving the likes of Ken Bates as one of the sole remaining high profile contenders.

But Paphitis is still very much in the mix of things. He is a member of the board that will decide on the new appointment, and with the new arrival’s authorisation would gladly stick around with the likes of former Millwall chairmen Peter Mead and Reg Burr in the boardroom.

So what would Paphitis want from a new chairman?

“My personal preference would be for someone to put fresh money into the club and buy new shares,” he said. “That would be for the benefit of everybody at the club.

“The board is treating it very seriously and I am sure we will come to the appropriate decision at the right time.

“I don’t fancy spending my Saturday afternoons at B&Q but it will depend on a new chairman if I stay. This club already has two ex-chairmen on the board and a third one might be considered too many.

“It’s important that the decision is taken in conjunction with the new chairman because someone else may think differently.”

Any notion that Paphitis would make a u-turn – as he has in the past – and carry on at the helm for another season, was dismissed.

“I think it would be unfair to reconsider my decision. I didn’t arrive at the decision lightly,” protested Paphitis.

“At the beginning I said I’d do three to five years but I have now had seven of the most wonderful years of my life at the club.

“But there comes a time where all the pressure you have has got to give, and it’s the time for someone else to take over the reins.

“The decision has been made with a lot of thought and with the best interests of Millwall football club.”

Other nuggets of information were also brought to light. Millwall paid £5,000 to agents in the most recent six-month period and only a quarter of all shareholders were estimated to be in attendance at matches.

Paphitis also made it clear that reaching the top division is the be all and end all regarding the club’s share performance.

He added: “There’s only one thing that would increase stock in Millwall and that’s promotion to the Premier League, which is what we’ve got to go for.

“Football stocks, apart from Manchester United, have gone through the floor. We have also seen teams like Sunderland privatise their club because of its’ value.”

The privatisation prospect is certainly a feasible one. It would require one party acquiring over 50 per cent of the shares and then deciding to take full control of the club to take it out of the public domain.

As majority shareholders, Lonestar are in pole position to do such a deal, but Paphitis insisted that he was yet to have such a conversation with his new business partners.

After all manner of takeover what ifs were explored, the meeting rather bizarrely ended with a question fired at the chairman surrounding his stance on swearing at the Den.

He answered: “Foul and abusive language is not acceptable. Quite a lot of people have a problem that we are stringent about it.

“We all swear every now and then but a constant barrage of abuse is not acceptable in a fan environment.”

So there you have it. You can make football as trendy and business-like as you want, but eventually the topic will always switch to the most primal elements of the game that have been in existence since the year dot.

Amen to that.