king_dezeeuw06
Vital Champions League
Hi everyone, i attended the Fans Fund consultation last night it lasted about 2 and a half hours. There were probably about 20 fans there along with a number of people from the club. We had a presentation of the new scheme and were able to ask questions as we went.
There was a lot of information covered and while it was mostly a consultation about the new fans fund we were able to discuss wider issues with the club. I believe the people from the club tried to be as open with us as they could but some of the questions asked such as when will a new chairman be announced, fell outside of their remit to give an answer.
There is going to be official communications from the club (and an official launch of the new fans fund in the next few weeks so i wont dive too much into the details. It's not that there's anything secret but they obviously want to announce things properly rather than any of the fans preempting everything they are going to announce. We made some suggestions meaning that there may be some minor changes from what was discussed last night, so i wont go into any specifics on the fans fund as that will be communicated soon.
Below are some of the main bits. These are my interpretations and summaries from lengthy conversations. I tried to make notes so hopefully i've got most of the info accurate, but forgive me if i got anything slightly wrong. So don't take any of this as direct quotes from anyone at the club or read anything into any comments beyond what was written. I am happy to clarify or answers questions. I don't want anyone to jump to or the wrong conclusions if i worded something wrong - as it was a positive meeting.
General Club stuff
They were aware of speculation that the club was rudderless without a full time CEO being appointed but they said that isn't the case. The club does have a legal and technical board in place and everything is running smoothly while the CEO recruitment process is still running. They were not able to give us any details of the progress or estimate a time when a new CEO would be confirmed.
Old Fans Fund
The previous fans fund had 1600 members over it's 2 and a half years with 900 still left when it was closed down earlier this month.
Over that period the fund raised 320k NET. All of the money was ring fenced and kept within the scheme, none went to anything else under the previous regime.
The costs associated with the previous scheme was multiple sales staff salaries and all of the bits and pieces they gave away like shirts, scarfs monopoly, badges etc. The new scheme plans to try and streamline that to give fans less stuff they don't need, better benefits and more value for money for the club and fans.
They only had 40 international Fans Fund members which is a missed opportunity and they plan to offer a fund with different benefits for overseas fans.
They wanted to launch a new fans fund to try and get away from the old regime. They know there has been a lot of frustration and a lack of trust and want to rebuild that. They believe they will do that by being fully transparent, communicating better and delivering a better product.
Academy and Pre Academy
Being an Academy 2 means we get over 800k a season in Prem grants towards it but nothing from the EFL for football matters, but some for educational stuff.
The academy costs about 2m a year to run so the club is spending in the region of 1.2m on it. To become a Cat 1 academy it's financially a huge step up in facilities and costs that isn't on the cards for the foreseeable.
Of the 320k the Fans Fund raised just under 80% went to the academy.
Some of the stuff that it bought for the academy was analysis software, equipment, gym and classroom improvements, nutrition and funding tours for the various youth groups.
The stuff it bought for the first team were Gym improvements, spin bikes, Frost covers and hot and cold recovery pools.
The new fund is going to be focused completely on youth development rather than the first team. For the existing academy nutrition and psychology are 2 areas they want to improve. With a massive focus on 'Pre Academy'. I didn't know much about that until last night but to explain it there are 2 major recruitment windows for youth players:
One is around 14 years old when the bigger clubs discard lot of young players and clubs like ourselves can bring them into our academy. This is where we picked up Hughes, Aasgaard and Carragher. I think we may have also got the likes Baines and McMannaman through that many years ago.
The other window is 'Pre Academy' which is the younger age groups where kids are not able to sign for a particular academy yet, so are free to take part in multiple clubs youth training sessions. Depending on what days and times teams run their sessions you could have kids who go to our sessions but also attend Liverpool, United, City, etc. We got Watson, Sze and Tickle were all in the pre academy age groups and have stuck with us through. I believe Geldhardt, Weir and Devine were also through that.
The Pre academy stage was something we didn't do at all until we became an academy in 2014 and we solely relied on picking up other clubs kids once they let them go. But a pre academy allows us to get talented local youngsters involved in our system which increases our chances of being able to eventually sign them to the academy when they are old enough rather than joining another club.
We all know the clubs budget is always stretched due to the high costs of running the first team, so the fans fund money will go into improving our pre academy to help us to attract and retain players in those younger age groups. When you factor in the huge cost of first team the fans fund money will make a vastly bigger difference in the pre academy. It's very competitive and we are outnumbered on staff by bigger clubs, with many of our staff doing double duty helping in both academy and pre academy. The funds will go towards dedicated staff, running more sessions, the various kit, equipment, etc.
Ticketing
The old ticketing system was not working very well for various reasons so they got out of that deal and moved to TicketMaster. They got a good deal off TicketMaster and the platform is vastly better for the club. There will be no booking fee on digital tickets, but there will be a small fee on physical tickets for printing and posting. If an opposition club also uses TicketMaster you will be able to use digital tickets for those away games. TicketMaster will also help us to deliver the new benefits of the new fans fund. Ticket installment schemes for season tickets will still be available.
Latics TV and Streaming
Latics TV is getting improved and they will start to produce more content.
The tv rights deal is changing next season but we don't have clarity on how that will impact the streaming of games so there will be more details on that as it becomes clear.
Communications
This meeting was the first step of the new regime improving communication with the fans and they plan to run other sessions like this in the future.
There was a big discussion about the clubs communication. The concerns that have been voiced on here and social media were put forward and the club representatives acknowledged those and said the club will improve on that.
There was a lot of information covered and while it was mostly a consultation about the new fans fund we were able to discuss wider issues with the club. I believe the people from the club tried to be as open with us as they could but some of the questions asked such as when will a new chairman be announced, fell outside of their remit to give an answer.
There is going to be official communications from the club (and an official launch of the new fans fund in the next few weeks so i wont dive too much into the details. It's not that there's anything secret but they obviously want to announce things properly rather than any of the fans preempting everything they are going to announce. We made some suggestions meaning that there may be some minor changes from what was discussed last night, so i wont go into any specifics on the fans fund as that will be communicated soon.
Below are some of the main bits. These are my interpretations and summaries from lengthy conversations. I tried to make notes so hopefully i've got most of the info accurate, but forgive me if i got anything slightly wrong. So don't take any of this as direct quotes from anyone at the club or read anything into any comments beyond what was written. I am happy to clarify or answers questions. I don't want anyone to jump to or the wrong conclusions if i worded something wrong - as it was a positive meeting.
General Club stuff
They were aware of speculation that the club was rudderless without a full time CEO being appointed but they said that isn't the case. The club does have a legal and technical board in place and everything is running smoothly while the CEO recruitment process is still running. They were not able to give us any details of the progress or estimate a time when a new CEO would be confirmed.
Old Fans Fund
The previous fans fund had 1600 members over it's 2 and a half years with 900 still left when it was closed down earlier this month.
Over that period the fund raised 320k NET. All of the money was ring fenced and kept within the scheme, none went to anything else under the previous regime.
The costs associated with the previous scheme was multiple sales staff salaries and all of the bits and pieces they gave away like shirts, scarfs monopoly, badges etc. The new scheme plans to try and streamline that to give fans less stuff they don't need, better benefits and more value for money for the club and fans.
They only had 40 international Fans Fund members which is a missed opportunity and they plan to offer a fund with different benefits for overseas fans.
They wanted to launch a new fans fund to try and get away from the old regime. They know there has been a lot of frustration and a lack of trust and want to rebuild that. They believe they will do that by being fully transparent, communicating better and delivering a better product.
Academy and Pre Academy
Being an Academy 2 means we get over 800k a season in Prem grants towards it but nothing from the EFL for football matters, but some for educational stuff.
The academy costs about 2m a year to run so the club is spending in the region of 1.2m on it. To become a Cat 1 academy it's financially a huge step up in facilities and costs that isn't on the cards for the foreseeable.
Of the 320k the Fans Fund raised just under 80% went to the academy.
Some of the stuff that it bought for the academy was analysis software, equipment, gym and classroom improvements, nutrition and funding tours for the various youth groups.
The stuff it bought for the first team were Gym improvements, spin bikes, Frost covers and hot and cold recovery pools.
The new fund is going to be focused completely on youth development rather than the first team. For the existing academy nutrition and psychology are 2 areas they want to improve. With a massive focus on 'Pre Academy'. I didn't know much about that until last night but to explain it there are 2 major recruitment windows for youth players:
One is around 14 years old when the bigger clubs discard lot of young players and clubs like ourselves can bring them into our academy. This is where we picked up Hughes, Aasgaard and Carragher. I think we may have also got the likes Baines and McMannaman through that many years ago.
The other window is 'Pre Academy' which is the younger age groups where kids are not able to sign for a particular academy yet, so are free to take part in multiple clubs youth training sessions. Depending on what days and times teams run their sessions you could have kids who go to our sessions but also attend Liverpool, United, City, etc. We got Watson, Sze and Tickle were all in the pre academy age groups and have stuck with us through. I believe Geldhardt, Weir and Devine were also through that.
The Pre academy stage was something we didn't do at all until we became an academy in 2014 and we solely relied on picking up other clubs kids once they let them go. But a pre academy allows us to get talented local youngsters involved in our system which increases our chances of being able to eventually sign them to the academy when they are old enough rather than joining another club.
We all know the clubs budget is always stretched due to the high costs of running the first team, so the fans fund money will go into improving our pre academy to help us to attract and retain players in those younger age groups. When you factor in the huge cost of first team the fans fund money will make a vastly bigger difference in the pre academy. It's very competitive and we are outnumbered on staff by bigger clubs, with many of our staff doing double duty helping in both academy and pre academy. The funds will go towards dedicated staff, running more sessions, the various kit, equipment, etc.
Ticketing
The old ticketing system was not working very well for various reasons so they got out of that deal and moved to TicketMaster. They got a good deal off TicketMaster and the platform is vastly better for the club. There will be no booking fee on digital tickets, but there will be a small fee on physical tickets for printing and posting. If an opposition club also uses TicketMaster you will be able to use digital tickets for those away games. TicketMaster will also help us to deliver the new benefits of the new fans fund. Ticket installment schemes for season tickets will still be available.
Latics TV and Streaming
Latics TV is getting improved and they will start to produce more content.
The tv rights deal is changing next season but we don't have clarity on how that will impact the streaming of games so there will be more details on that as it becomes clear.
Communications
This meeting was the first step of the new regime improving communication with the fans and they plan to run other sessions like this in the future.
There was a big discussion about the clubs communication. The concerns that have been voiced on here and social media were put forward and the club representatives acknowledged those and said the club will improve on that.
Last edited:
