Paul Heckingbottom: Preston North End takeover talk, prospect of change and investment importance

Preston North End manager Paul Heckingbottom trusts the Hemmings family to pass the club on to the right people.

On Easter Monday, US-Saudi businessman, Amr Zedan, attended Deepdale for the visit of Queens Park Rangers. Talks with Zedan were confirmed by PNE chairman, Ian Penrose, back in January. Following his visit to the Lilywhites’ fixture, journalist Alan Nixon reported that Zedan is in advanced talks to purchase the Lancashire club - which has been owned by the Hemmings family since 2010.

Craig Hemmings - son of Trevor Hemmings and former chairman - set a two-year target for a sale, via a club strategy update in October. He and the family have not shied away from the fact they are ready to move it on when the time is right. Heckingbottom says he has not met with or spoken to Zedan, and had no update to share nor details to divulge on Thursday. But, in his latest press conference, did discuss the prospect of ownership change at Deepdale.

“Listen, I think there's so many different things to a changeover in a football club, and I've been involved in a lot of them,” Heckingbottom told the Lancashire Post. “One thing I can guarantee is that there is change. Even when people say nothing's going to change, everything will change. Some people suffer from it, some people won’t be better off for it, some people lose their jobs.

“There's negatives and there's positives. But what I would say here at Preston is, for us to try and get on an even keel with our competitors, we need investment. Without a doubt, we do. And in the 18 months now that I've known him, I would trust Craig to do what he considers the right thing by Preston. He's not just going to dump it off his hands and give it to anyone. They will be doing due diligence to make sure that whoever they're speaking to has got the best interests of the club at heart. That is all I can say, really.”

The last time there was public takeover interest in PNE, US businessman Chris Kirchner ended up prioritising Derby County and eventually, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for fraud. Selling football clubs, in this day and age, can be a great challenge but North End’s boss feels some comfort should be taken from the fact Zedan is known to the Hemmings family - and described, by Penrose, as someone they ‘respect highly’.

“Yeah,” said Heckingbottom. “My role's different. Internally, I've been really vocal about what we need to do to improve, where we need to progress and what needs to happen. And everyone's in agreement, whether that's Craig, whether that's Peter, whether that's Ian. But for us to be able to do that is another matter and that's over to Ian and Craig, if you like, to try and make that happen.”

Reliance on owners bigger than ever

BBC Sport published an alarming article last weekend, all around the financial landscape of the Championship and huge sums of money being lost by clubs, each year. Heckingbottom knows the enormous reliance on ownership funding and therefore, stresses the importance of strategy, planning and money being used as effectively as possible.

”Yeah, and that's what makes me laugh about this fit and proper (test), and how hard it is for people to get inside football clubs,” said Heckingbottom. “They all show they've got the money for a couple of years but if it's mismanaged, it's like any other business, it's going to go under. The successful clubs always have a plan.

“The successful clubs will aim to be sustainable at some point and that's what I've always spoken about, whether it's generating young players, whether it's buying to sell and making profit out of player trading. But, we need to kick-start that process.

“I'm speaking hypothetically; we may only get investment to try and kick-start that process. Then, it's back over to you again... you have to make your own money. But we need to kick-start the process. When I'm looking at your Charltons spending that and all the other teams spending that, our net spend's sort of zero... it’s difficult to start that process.

“We have to do it but we have to do it in a way that's right for the football club. That's back to your question you asked... some people are excited, some people are not, some people will probably moan if someone comes in and they think it's going to be like a Birmingham, or a Wrexham, and money's going to be spent to that level.

“I'd say, no matter who comes in, you can't do that. You've got to build from the bottom and make sure that the foundations are right. And then, hopefully, you're never over-reliant on one person just deciding it's not for them one day.”