#NotMyTrust

Tom,

Thank you for your message and congratulations too. It really has been a fantastic time for the club. We have always known we are a community club at heart but to get the recognition for all that hard work is just wonderful and now everyone else can see what a great community club we are.

We agree it is important to ask questions and probably best we just go ahead and answer yours in order.

One of the topics that has come up is the transaction with 5U sport, the Trust board members and advisors have made a lot of accusations and complaints about this whole transaction recently and we wondered if you could perhaps give some clarity on the situation, we understand it is likely a complex situation so whatever you can share would be great.

It actually amazes us that this is still brought up by the current Trust board after all these years. The best way to answer this is to attach the letter that was sent to the Trust Board September 6th, 2020. We have always felt this letter answered the questions clearly and have no idea why this was never shared with Trust members and even still some Trust board members keep posting questions and making statements online as if this letter doesn’t exist.

Link to attatched document

As a follow up to this, the club was at that time seeking investment/sale - is the club currently up for sale?

In term of being ‘up for sale’ this was something that we feel was incorrectly portrayed previously and still is sometimes, the club was never ‘up for sale’. I believe what we said at that time was that we would probably seek further investment as we climbed the leagues.

We are in the same position as we have always been in that the club is not on the market or ‘up for sale’ however if you ask any Football Club Chairman we all get many approaches from different people at various times. We feel as we are only ‘custodians’ of the club it is right to deal with these approaches appropriately as we wouldn’t want to deprive the club of a rich benefactor if one appeared, so we have a process that we follow which starts of course with confirmation of proof and source of funding in the first instance and continues from there. Having these conversations though does not mean that we will or are looking to sell the club, the club is up for sale or any other conspiracy theories that are banded about by some, but we look at each situation or approach on its merits to see if it will benefit the club.

On the topic of the East Stand, the Trust board has been claiming that the club has removed the obligations to complete the stand, can you clarify that also?

The claim that an obligation to complete the East Stand has been removed is a false narrative and we spoke about this at the recent Fans Fourm. As pointed out on that evening these are two clauses ‘actually’ in the final Cabinet Council Report.

• 5.12 Bower and Thomas have also given public assurances that completion of the East Stand is a priority, and an undertaking in its offer letter to complete it within five years.
• 6.20 A range of legal mechanisms may be used to achieve these outcomes. This would include arrangements reflecting the commitment given by Bower and Thomas in relation to the East Stand.

If we are ever allowed to get this to contract it has also been publicly said and agreed by both the Club and the Council that this obligation will form part of that contract. The commitment to complete the stand exists, is genuine and the Trust were also been told by us and the Council in writing in early April 2022. We are and remain totally committed to completing the Stand.

For the completion of the stand, currently you have spent more on the club than you anticipated according to your early statements when you took over, are funds still available for the completion of the stand? and if so, does that money being needed for the stand prevent investment in the first team? or are you able to continue to invest in both, is there a need to sell in form players for example to service the debts/keep the club running?

Simple answer to this is yes funds are available and the investment in the team is not affected by that. We have always felt that we have invested in the team anyway and it that is no more evident than this year. We have a young squad competing at the top of the table on long term contracts. We turned significant offers down for our Captain and secured him on a long contract just this summer so the football is a focus for us as if we truly were just interested in the land we should have happily and quickly taken that transfer fee.

Some members of the trust board have been critical of the transparency around the development plan and how it will benefit the club. Are the most recent plans that you released still the goal you are currently working towards? and can you talk more about how the wider development will benefit the club, specifically around the ACV land that the trust board are saying they are trying to protect? Do you feel these plans have been made clear to the fans and the Trust board?

Again it amazes us that anyone can even say they are concerned about the transparency especially on this deal which has always been in the public domain. Our plans have been online since the Summer of 2021 which is basically what we are working towards, we held an Open House at the stadium specifically to discuss the East Stand Development where fans could come to the club and see the plans and ask any questions they needed too, and since then we have also held an open fans forum which covered the East Stand Development which again is online still. Not sure there is much more the club can do to be any more transparent and give fans the opportunity to ask the questions themselves.

In terms of the ACV land I can only point you to the Heads of Terms that has been agreed between the Club, CDNL and the Council. There is the actual clause in that document that describes who benefits from the land and it is very clear.

• The Football Company and the Purchaser acknowledge that any benefit derived from the Running Track shall be for the benefit of the Football Company

Whilst CDNL (Purchaser) is owned by the Football Club (Football Company) anyway, to protect this clause and the club even further we ensured that CDNL had that obligation in writing too. So no matter what anyone says the former athletics track is ONLY to be used for the benefit of the Football Club.

It is strange to us that a Supporters Trust would completely ignore this clause, try and tell everyone something completely different while then trying to land grab the former athletics track for their own benefit and take away the ‘direct’ benefit to the Football Club.

As it stands today there is obviously a lot of uncertainty around the land and the stand etc - what in the club's/your opinion right now is the best and worst case scenario, and do you have plans in place for the worst case to ensure the survival of the club?

This is pretty simple, the best case is that the club is able to secure the land on the already agreed deal, complete the East Stand and any funds to be used for the benefit of the Club. The worst case is that any other third party or rival bidder including the Trust secures the land, deprives the club of that direct revenue, the club can’t control its own land or future, the East Stand still doesn’t get completed and the club remains in debt.

We do have plans in place for the worst case but it is safe to say that the best case is better for the club.

As the club owns the leases on the land it has been suggested that there is nothing stopping development work starting on the stand, can you explain what is currently preventing work from starting?

We took the decision a long time ago that in order to protect the Club there had to be complete certainty on the lease and/or freehold position before the club could invest several millions to complete the East Stand. The Trust evoking the ACV position confirms that this was the right approach all along as them potentially securing that land shows that the club is at risk in this situation.

The former athletics track lease covers the area right up to the back of the East Stand so if the club did not own this land then it would technically need permission from the entity that holds the freehold to access the East Stand. This is not a position that we feel is sensible to put the club in and whilst the Trust Board can say all they want they would give that permission if they were to achieve their land grab, we are not convinced their behaviour has been fair and reasonable up to now so why would that change? Why would it be sensible to have the club invest millions and add debt to put the club at risk when a third party can control some matters.

In simple terms it is like owning a house but not the front path and garden and you have to get permission to walk up the front path through the garden to get to your door from a third party. You may still live in the house but would you invest several millions into that house without controlling the front path and garden too? Added to that the conveyancing and leases on this site are very poor and nobody in their right mind would invest millions without having the appropriate rights or control, particularly if that control rests in the hands of a rival bidder to the football club.

Finally in regards to the Trust itself, at the moment it appears that the relationship with the club is at an all time low, is the club willing to work to try and restore that relationship? and if so in your opinion what needs to change?

We made our feelings very clear about the behaviour of the current Trust Board and since that fans forum we would say that behaviour, especially on social media, has possibly been worse. The treatment that you have received and the other 8 people who have stepped up for change has been horrific and you are fans. You are people that this Trust Board is supposed to represent and they have just attacked you, making up names for you and calling you all sorts of things. We have sat back and watched this happen in disbelief to be honest and it seems like they have answered the fact that we said at the fans forum that they bully and attack fans online by basically bullying and attacking fans online. It really is crazy stuff.

However that being said we have always stated that we feel a Supporters Trust is an important part of a football club eco system and in fairness we had no issues with the Trust for the first few years of our ownership. It seems like certain personalities have since taken control of the Trust and taken it in a very dark direction, however if there was a more diverse board who believed in the Trust’s own mission statement then we would be happy to engage again. Don’t forget we actually have an elected supporters representative on the board in Tom Cliffe and we would see it as very sensible for Tom to be involved in a new and improved Trust Board.

The Trust should never be there just to agree with the club but it should act in a reasonable, balanced, transparent, responsible and grown up way, challenging when it needs to, supporting when it can and acting in the best interests of members and supporters at all times. We are far from convinced the current Trust board can claim to do any of these and from the response to your petition amongst other feedback we get, a lot of supporters seem to feel the same way. We think a Trust should be a ‘critical friend’ but if all it ever does is criticise then it becomes harder and harder to be friend too.

It is very encouraging to see that you have taken the approach of change rather than to start a new Trust and we hope that your group can implement some changes and the injection of new blood is welcomed by the existing board so that we can get back to hopefully having an open, honest, less aggressive and professional relationship with our Supporters Trust again.

Hope this helps and if you have any more questions feel free to get in touch.

Regards,

Kelvin