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Supporter ownership: Q&A session with Erik Samuelson, CEO of AFC Wimbledon


Ulysses

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Do you pay agents fees for signings or for contract extensions ?

 

Do you pay agents fees for signings or for contract extensions ?

 

No. See my earlier answer re players? wages etc.

 

I?d be very happy to pay an agent if we told him or her, for example, that we needed a player with specific attributes and they found us one when we couldn?t.

 

To be fair, agents are simply a cross?section of people and like all cross-sections, some are good, some are OK - and some are incompetent or downright greedy with little concern for their player?s medium term interests. At our level, they ?invest? in a player in the hope or expectation that the player will be able to move to a higher club and that is when they can make their money. So the low quality agents are always looking to move a player on to make sure they get their cut asap.

 

The best agents work with us to look at the player?s career over the next few years and generally accept that he will be better off playing in the shop window at our level than earning more but sitting on the bench elsewhere. It is then a case of working with the agent and player to see when is the best time for the player to move on. Done well, everyone gains.

 

The worst agents are only interested in moving the player on and/or demanding ludicrous wages. Some are so bad we refuse to deal with them.

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Hi Erik, thanks for taking the time to do this for us. Much appreciated. :)

 

1. So that we can try and make a very rough guess at comparative levels of interest/funding from our own supporters could you please give a little more info on rough size of your fan base, number of season ticket holders and number of people who have pledged to donate on a regular basis?

 

2. How many people are on the Trust board and what sort of background do they have? I.e. are they generally elected on basis of their professional skills?

 

3. How does the Trust generally communicate with its members? How do the members influence decision making and for what type of decisions are their views sought?

 

4. As others have already said, it would be great if you could give us background to the ways in which your model has evolved over time and the pitfalls or problems you encountered along the way.

 

5. Out of interest, what sort of annual player budget do you have?

 

Hi Erik, thanks for taking the time to do this for us. Much appreciated.

 

1. So that we can try and make a very rough guess at comparative levels of interest/funding from our own supporters could you please give a little more info on rough size of your fan base, number of season ticket holders and number of people who have pledged to donate on a regular basis?

 

 

We don?t really know the size of our fan base ? see my earlier replies, but we did some analysis recently that showed that 14,000 households, (not individuals) had some contact with us in the last three years. This includes STs, shareholders, Trust members, people buying tickets and merchandise on line etc. Ok, some of these will be relatives buying presents etc., but it gives us an idea. We have about 2,000 Trust members, roughly the same number of shareholders and 2,650 ST holders. The Venn diagram is very interesting as there isn?t as much overlap as you?d imagine between these groups.

 

2. How many people are on the Trust board and what sort of background do they have? I.e. are they generally elected on basis of their professional skills?

 

 

There are nine elected members. They include a rocket scientist (really!), the ex CEO of a major international business, the owner of a successful record company, an IT strategist, and the pictures editor of a national daily. So a fairly eclectic group.

 

 

3. How does the Trust generally communicate with its members? How do the members influence decision making and for what type of decisions are their views sought?

 

 

I covered comms with members in an earlier reply ? sorry if I seem to be getting a bit lazy but I am struggling for time now.

 

Members can influence decision making by voting for their representatives to get on the Trust board; joining a working group (there are several); coming to general meetings; and raising resolutions. We also conducted the first of a more extensive type of fans? survey last year on what they care about most ? staying in fan ownership came top of the list, followed by a return to our home borough.

 

To be honest, however, most members don?t come to general meetings. Maybe it is because we?ve made them boring, or maybe it is because the members feel we?re doing a good job. It?s hard to tell.

 

4. As others have already said, it would be great if you could give us background to the ways in which your model has evolved over time and the pitfalls or problems you encountered along the way.

 

I?m not sure how to answer this. How has our model evolved? I would say not much but maybe that is because I?m too close to it to spot the incremental changes. The only thing that strikes me is that after someone tried to buy the club we introduced some restrictive actions that make it very, very hard for the ownership of the club or stadium to change. That was another area where Supporters Direct were of great practical support.

 

5. Out of interest, what sort of annual player budget do you have?

 

 

We don?t publish the number, but I usually say that our annual budget is less than four weeks? wages for a top premiership player, i.e. under ?1m.

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Question from Jammy T posted in wrong thread

 

Erik

 

Great to have someone with experience of this set up to share his experiences.

 

Probably a difficult question for you to answer but it appears Hearts have two models on the table at present:

 

1. one based on 100% fan ownership (Foundation of Hearts)

2. one based on 51% fan ownership with apparently the current ownership keeping the remaining 49%

 

Now, I am a bit, lets say, jaundiced with the current ownership but even the most fervent supporters of Romanov and his cohorts would concede that most of the time the running of the business has been, well most neutral I can put it is erratic.

 

Do you have any observations as to whether you consider model 2 to be workable? Or will fan ownership only really work in an environment of 100% fan owners?

 

I don't think I should get drawn into what feels like politics especially when I don't really know your circumstances too well, but I can talk about what we did.

 

When we created AFCW PLC to raise money towards the purchase of our current stadium we made two types of shares available in equal quantities. One had three votes per share and one had one vote per share. The Trust bought all the 3-votes-per-share shares which meant that even if all the rest were sold the Trust would have 75% of the votes, effectively ensuring control over a range of matters including the ability to change the rules. We felt that if we didn't have that, we would lose control of our club.

 

We were coming at it from the point of view that we already owned our club whereas you're seeking control, so that makes it very different. In the end, you need to decide whether you can work with the other 49%. Only you know the answer to that and I am also sure that you know the pros and cons of a large shareholding like that.

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Covered by Marquis de Carabas. Thanks.

 

I'll use the slot to slip in another of my own.

 

Why did you go down the route of becoming an Industrial and Provident Society rather than say a limited company?

 

To be honest, I am not entirely sure. I think it was because it allowed one vote per person, irrespective of how much they paid for the shares, but Supporters Direct would be much better placed to answer that - I wasn't involved in the creation of the Trust from a Constitutional perspective so if I ever knew, I've forgotten. Sorry.

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As above from Mysterion this time

 

Good point!

I have some questions for Erik:

 

Do you have a financial contingency plan?

 

Not written down formally, no. But we are prudent and have a hefty chunk of cash in the bank.

 

If so - Do you have any guidance towards determining the amount of money that should be set aside (eg. 5% of ticket sales)?

 

In the end, we are a small business, with turnover about ?3m, and small businesses are best run, in my view, by keeping a close eye on the cash. How much do we set aside? Well, right now if we got no season ticket renewals I think we would pretty much get through to the end of June (when gate money starts to come in again from pre-season friendlies) and maybe even July.

 

I can't understand how clubs can run on the basis that if they have a game postponed then they can't afford to pay the bills/wages due to the loss of short term income. It's like setting off down the motorway with the tank showing it's on reserves and never topping it up enough to get rid of the warning light. That is not for me and I am pretty sure it isn't what our fans want.

 

Have you had to utilise emergency funding during the more recent history of AFCW and how did this influence the club's approach to emergency planning?

 

No and hopefully we won't. That is one way I am very happy to be boring!

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You will gather that I don't post on chat sites very often so this will probably appear in the wrong place, but it looks as if I've scared you all away - or you got bored with the sheer length of my replies! So I am off to get my tea and then some TV. I've enjoyed this session and you've made me think about what we do and why we do it, so many thanks for that.

 

Whatever happens, good luck and if I can be of any assistance then please let me know. I'm not hard to get hold of......

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scott herbertson

Thank you for responding so lucidly and helpfully Erik = Hibs match just started on telly which may have influenced the tail off///

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Boaby Ewing

You will gather that I don't post on chat sites very often so this will probably appear in the wrong place, but it looks as if I've scared you all away - or you got bored with the sheer length of my replies! So I am off to get my tea and then some TV. I've enjoyed this session and you've made me think about what we do and why we do it, so many thanks for that.

 

Whatever happens, good luck and if I can be of any assistance then please let me know. I'm not hard to get hold of......

 

Not at all - it's been very interesting and useful. I think the answers were comprehensive enough so as not to require too many immediate follow-ups (that and the realization from the JKB posters that you had a fair number to plow through, without throwing more into the mix)!

 

Thank you very much indeed. A lot of what you've said is very encouraging. Elsewhere you've highlighted a few larger issues that we might face that AFC Wimbledon didn't, but better to think them through in advance.

 

Thanks again, and to Uly/JKB for putting this together.

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Francis Albert

You will gather that I don't post on chat sites very often so this will probably appear in the wrong place, but it looks as if I've scared you all away - or you got bored with the sheer length of my replies! So I am off to get my tea and then some TV. I've enjoyed this session and you've made me think about what we do and why we do it, so many thanks for that.

 

Whatever happens, good luck and if I can be of any assistance then please let me know. I'm not hard to get hold of......

 

[modedit - off topic comment removed]

 

Anyway thanks - lots of food for thought in your replies.

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Francis Albert

A couple of others if I may.

 

What were/are are the main channels of communication with the Trust members during and since acquisition?

 

 

We use a range of means. They vary from our web site, programme articles, regular members? meetings, social media, letters to members, etc. It?s an area we could do better and one of our issues is that we don?t know who all our fans are ? hence we?re aiming to develop a CRM system to help us to manage this better.

 

Can you say a bit about how the "supervisory" Trust Board interacts with you and the others running the club day to day? What decisions does the Trust Board determine or have a say in?

 

 

The Football Club Board (FCB) meets weekly but once a month it meets with a formal agenda and papers. (Remember that we are mainly volunteers so getting together is essential to help us to keep up as well as the formal meeting as a board.) The chair of the Don Trust Board (DTB) attends the formal monthly meeting and the papers from that meeting are updated and sent as a formal report to the DTB for its monthly meeting a week or so later.

 

The DTB sets or agrees the strategy and is responsible for overseeing the work of the FCB. I tend to describe it as operating as a board of non-executives. The four FCB members are invited to DTB meetings but don?t have a vote. In practice I always go and the other FCB directors attend when they can or at the request of the DTB. To give you an example of how key decisions are made, when we appointed Neal Ardley as our manager in October, the entire process was carried out by the football club board, but the DT board was given a full run down on the process, the criteria, and why we selected Neal. Their job was to make sure we did it professionally, not to second guess our decision.

 

I need to say this somewhere, although it isn?t directly related to this question. We get a lot of things wrong and if you asked our fans they?d no doubt have quite a few gripes, so please don?t think we are exceptional or fantastically gifted. We?re just passionate about our club, in the same way as you are, and so are the very many fans who participate in different ways.

 

And finally, just to be clear, any opinions in these answers are mine and are not made on behalf of the club or Trust.

 

That's an interesting reply and seems to me the right balance. A wholly elected Trust Board determines the strategy and the Football club board runs the football club, but with Trust Board oversight?

 

I don't know if follow ups are going to be answered but would the Trust Board be responsible for approving the budget?

 

And who appoints the Football Club board?

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Although not contributing to this I would echo the thanks and second the praise for your efforts here . a good thread with many salient replies and a pointer for those trying to capture our support for the tribulations we are facing.

Thanks very much indeed to those involved in the organising and hosting of this

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Geoff Kilpatrick

Erik, excellent stuff and thanks for your time. I think every football supporter has a soft spot for your club after the disgrace of Franchise FC so thank you again and good luck in preserving your league status.

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You will gather that I don't post on chat sites very often so this will probably appear in the wrong place, but it looks as if I've scared you all away - or you got bored with the sheer length of my replies! So I am off to get my tea and then some TV. I've enjoyed this session and you've made me think about what we do and why we do it, so many thanks for that.

 

Whatever happens, good luck and if I can be of any assistance then please let me know. I'm not hard to get hold of......

 

Erik,

 

Thanks very much for putting your time and effort into this Q&A. I'd have liked to be around this evening while you were online, but I'm afraid the day job intervened and got the upper hand.

 

I think there are really useful insights in what you've posted, whether from the point of view of someone trying to promote supporter ownership or from the point of view of supporters wondering what to think and what to ask. I should say that some of your answers do give a degree of concern about the prospects of success for a Hearts supporter ownership venture - but they are no less helpful for that, and what you've said shows that supporter ownership is a feasible way for a football club to run itself and go about its business.

 

The best of luck this weekend. Cheers, and thanks again.

 

Ulysses

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Great reading this thread. Thanks for your time erik and well done to uly and all involved for putting this together. Really enjoyed reading this

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bigsuperslim1874

Interesting reading. Thanks Erik for taking the time to answer the questions.

 

Best of luck for the weekend - I hope Wimbledon get the result they need.

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Guest Dipped Flake

Many thanks Erik for agreeing to do this and good luck for the weekend, really hope you can avoid relegation

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That's an interesting reply and seems to me the right balance. A wholly elected Trust Board determines the strategy and the Football club board runs the football club, but with Trust Board oversight?

 

I don't know if follow ups are going to be answered but would the Trust Board be responsible for approving the budget?

 

And who appoints the Football Club board?

 

I dropped in to see if I'd missed anything and saw your post.

 

Correct about how the DTB interacts with the FCB. And it is similar with the budget. The FCB prepares it, many many times!, and then we take it to teh DTB for approval.

 

I think I covered who appoints the FCB elsewhere but new apointmetns are a pretty rare event. In the end, the DTB must approve any new director, but the recruitment process could vary according to the circumstances. In other words I'd expct them to be far more active in appointing my successor than, say, a new director to the FCB.

 

Cheers,

 

Erik

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Erik, excellent stuff and thanks for your time. I think every football supporter has a soft spot for your club after the disgrace of Franchise FC so thank you again and good luck in preserving your league status.

 

Thanks very much to all of you for your feedback and specifically for your remarks above, Geoff.

 

Erik

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I got a lot out of what Erik posted, but two things in particular stood out.

 

The first is that supporter ownership at Hearts would not be easy, and it's not a good idea to look at it wearing rose-tinted specs. The other, however, is that it seems to be a genuinely feasible idea ? which is something I wouldn?t have believed before this Q&A.

 

Just my two cents' worth.

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Some great info provided, sorry I posted questions in the wrong thread.

 

Thanks to Marquis de Carabas for reposting my questions.

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Chris Benoit

Some great info provided, sorry I posted questions in the wrong thread.

 

Thanks to Marquis de Carabas for reposting my questions.

 

No problem

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scott herbertson

I got a lot out of what Erik posted, but two things in particular stood out.

 

The first is that supporter ownership at Hearts would not be easy, and it's not a good idea to look at it wearing rose-tinted specs. The other, however, is that it seems to be a genuinely feasible idea ? which is something I wouldn?t have believed before this Q&A.

 

Just my two cents' worth.

 

Although we probably exist at different ends of the belief spectrum I agree entirely with both of your statements - genuine food for thought in this thread and I hope everyone involved in any scheme to save our great club reads it and reflects

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Chris Benoit

All the best to AFC Wimbeldon today in their battle to avoid the drop!

 

 

Very much this

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Congrats just seen great footage of the fans carrying the winning goal scorer on their shoulders and he's going mental, great scenes

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All the best to AFC Wimbeldon today in their battle to avoid the drop!

 

YAAAAAAAAAS!!!!!!!!!!

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As a test I?ve decided to answer the first question, just to prove to myself that I can post. I will post my other answers sometime before 7.00 pm on Monday.

 

We get a whole range of donations. I?ll break this question down to the time before the latest two initiatives (?We are Wimbledon? and the ?Blue and Yellow club?) and since they started.

 

Last year (ended 30 June 2012) we received about ?106k in donations. These break down into:

a. A one-off donation by a very generous individual donor ?50k;

b. donations attached to season tickets ?22k;

c. donations re returned ST vouchers ?22k;

d. sundry ?12k.

 

To explain b. a bit more, when we first started the club we asked fans to send ?200 for a one year ST as an advance so we could afford to commit to the rental for our proposed ground share. Given the levevl we were due to play at (if Man Utd = level 1, we started at level 9) we soon realised this was far too high a price so we reduced the cost of a ST to ?150 and asked the fans to donate the balance to us. Almost everyone did. Since then, every season we ask fans to give us ?50 as a totally voluntary donation when they renew their ST. We got about ?22k from this last year.

 

Re ? we ask any ST holders who can?t come to a game to donate their ST voucher to us so we can re-sell the seat (we?ve always been short of seats). Only one or two people who return vouchers ask for the money to be refunded and the other donated returns lead to, in effect, a transfer of 1/23 of the cost of the relevant ST from gate money to donations. If we can re-sell the seat, there is an obvious bonus as we?ve got both the donation and the income for the re-sold seat. If we can?t re-sell it, we can still re-claim the VAT on part of the ST which has a cash flow benefit (yes, HMRC has approved this process). I am pretty sure this wouldn?t work for most clubs but it does very nicely for us.

 

This season two groups of fans have started fundraising initiatives. WAW is targeting regular donations whereas membership of the B&Y club requires a one-off sum annually. WAW has asked fans to donate by direct debit. It is too early to say what will affect the number and value of DDs but the initial returns are very promising. On top of that WAW has had a few one-off donations but I?d say they were a relatively small percentage. But it is early days.

 

In general, given how we started, our fans are very generous and when we have needed money to strengthen the team then some fans have come to help, e.g. with a transfer fee or a contribution towards the wages of the sought-after player.

 

I am not a very speedy typist so if all my answers are this detailed I will be writing from now until 7.00 pm on Monday!

 

Thank you for your detailed and informative answer. Much appreciated.

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  • 3 years later...
scott herbertson

Erik looked a very happy man today - really pleased for him and what a great achievement for him, Ivor Heller and the fans who stuck with their team through the bad times

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Bumped this to make sense of Brownkg's post pub support

thanks for your support in the beer lets you be publicly humiliated campaign

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scott herbertson

thanks for your support in the beer lets you be publicly humiliated campaign

 

 

Have another beer - you'll still be humiliated but it won't feel as bad*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*(note, this advice is not approved by the Chief Medical Officer)

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Francis Albert

I was impressed at the time and am impressed again by rereading it that Erik took the trouble to participate and to answer so openly and fully.

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