Prabhu: This is not an ego buy

New Yeovil Town owner Prabhu Srinivasan has spoken about his ambitions for the club after visiting Huish Park ahead of Thursday’s Meet the Owner event.

The Dubai-based businessman, who completed a takeover from former owner Martin Hellier in last month, spoke with the media at the stadium on Wednesday afternoon.

Asked by BBC Somerset’s Jack Killah about his background, he said: “I am banker originally a banker, but I did a lot of work with technologies and then I had to find a way to get involved in sports in some form and shape. That is how I set up a youth sports platform for kids, we manage about 1,600 schools and colleges in India and about 50-odd schools in the Middle East.”

That business is KOOH (Kids Out Of Home) Sports a company he co-founded  in 2010 as an organisation which runs sports curriculum activities with schools across India funded by invested raised from private investors. 

In a more pointed question about his personal wealth from ITV Westcountry reporter Ross Arnott he was asked how much he was worth and when the club would get to the Premier League. He replied: “I wish I could tell you the answer to the first question, I can’t unfortunately. This is not a vanity buy for us as a family, not an ego buy for us, we are there for the fans. There have been highs and lows and there will be highs and lows when I am the owner as well, but we need to do what is right for the club, on and off the pitch.“

He also appeared to reference the desire to reunite the ownership of land at Huish Park with the club, something which Executive Chairman Stuart Robins spoke with us about in the latest edition of the Gloverscast – listen here.

Srinivasan said: “This is not about the money, our desire is to get the stadium back with the club. I am not going to put a timeframe on this, but our desire is to get back to the EFL but be competitive and make sure there is calmness in the club and some sustainable growth for the club.“

In his interview with the BBC, the new owner echoed statements made by Robins and in his own open letter to supporters about the desire to bring stability and sustainable growth to the club.

He said: “We want to be very measured in what we do, we want to get sustainable growth for the club and therefore we need to work on and off the pitch. It is not about being a one season wonder, we do not want to do that at all, we want to look back in three years and be able to say ‘we have done what we need to do for the club.’ We will ensure we have a very measured, thoughtful process in the way we do it.

“We think we should get in to the EFL as soon as we can and we hope (manager) Mark (Cooper) and his new team get there sooner than we think we should. I have been listening to Yeovil True almost every day and, like the song says, there will be ups and downs. Any club, any business has ups and downs, but you have to have green-and-white in your heart which is very important.“

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The most significant decision made since the takeover is the one which will see first-team training move more than 70 miles away at the SGS WISE Academy in Stoke Gifford, north of Bristol.

Speaking about the decision, Srinivasan said: “It is fundamentally driven by the fact we need proper training facilities. There were a few injuries last season, we want to make sure we do not have injured players and we can make sure they get proper facilities in Bristol. We went to see the facilities in Bristol which are outstanding. But one thing we need to understand is that this does not mean we will not be taking players from Yeovil, we will keep coming and checking here and evaluate them on their capabilities and take them to Bristol for efficient training, it is all for the team to be competitive.

Asked if he hoped to bring training back to Yeovil, he added: “That is the plan, subject to how we do in the next two seasons. The intention is to bring it back.“

What are your thoughts on the latest from Prabhu Srinivasan? Let us know by leaving a comment, below.