Mel Morris is targeting not only taking Derby County back to the Barclays Premier League, but keeping them there after he completed the successful purchase of the club yesterday.
Mel Morris is targeting not only taking Derby County back to the Barclays Premier League, but keeping them there after he completed the successful purchase of the club yesterday.
It was announced early Thursday morning the club’s Chairman had bought the remaining 78 per cent of the shares from North American Derby Partners LP for an undisclosed sum – a move that saw him take sole ownership of the Rams.
The 59-year-old businessman began reinvesting in the club just prior to Derby’s Play-Off Final defeat to QPR in 2014 and believes the club has a ‘very good future’ ahead of it.
In his first interview following this morning’s announcement, Morris told Rams Player HD: “I feel now as I did back then that this club is poised for a very good future.
“Having Sam Rush come on board has seen a big turnaround for this club. I wanted to be involved and I wanted to get on board to try and help this club get back to where it belongs and that’s in the Premier League.”
Morris, a life-long Rams fan, also reserved praise for the work of the ownership group he is succeeding in laying down the foundations that has led to Derby being in the situation they are in the present day.
North American Derby Partners LP first took over the Rams midway through their maiden season back in the top flight in 2007/08 and Morris believes his predecessors brought finance and stability at a time when it was needed.
“The club needed finance at that time and that is something they (North American Derby Partners LP) provided,” Morris added.
“They also provided stability with the two separate waves of investment and that was necessary to bring about a method of operation that was going to restore the finances and the balance sheet which was needed to turn the club into a proper operation.
“That was one of the reasons why I was able to invest last year because it was relatively simple to do the due diligence to understand how the club was being run.
“I have had 14 months to get to this point with the club and that strategy made the whole process easier.
“The Americans deserve a huge amount of credit for the work they did, work that maybe has not had the credit that it deserves.”
Looking to the future, it was announced this morning that Derby’s new owner plans to invite and meet fans, together with the President & Chief Executive Sam Rush and the coaching teams, to deliver a ‘transparent’ look ahead to the future of the club.
Morris claims Derby County is in the best financial shape in the Sky Bet Championship and believes it is important the club’s fan base is heavily involved in the future of the club.
He said: “Firstly we need to be a lot more transparent in how we operate. That doesn’t mean we are going to start spreading rumours about who we are going to buy in the transfer window, that’s not what I mean.
“It’s more about what we are trying to achieve, how we are going about doing that and that will be the start of a series of meetings throughout the season.
“We plan to get fans in and get them to understand the preparation that we put into games.
“If they want to understand the finances better then we will show them our finances, we have got nothing to hide. This club is in the best financial shape of any club in the Championship.”
Despite the Rams not recording their first win of the season, Morris is far from concerned – insisting that it is his job to de-stress stressful situations.
With head and heart firmly on an even keel insists he will remain objective throughout his time at the club as he looks to achieve his three-year plan.
He concluded: “My head and heart are in balance. I used to be a lunatic because I couldn’t cope with the stress of it all.
“Last time I was involved, I really did get very emotional about how we were performing and over time you become more philosophical about it all.
“The world doesn’t end on the back of one loss or one bad performance. I try and be objective.
“I have been asked before what the role of the Chairman is and the role is to de-stress the club when it gets stressed and that’s something I can’t do if I am ranting and raving every time a goal goes against us.
“There is a lot of things that we have to consider. I would love to say that we are going to get promoted this season, but I have a three-year plan that began in May last year and the aim is to pull it off in that time frame.”