SUPPORTER GROUPS FANSFUND CONSULTATION

TUESDAY 30^th JANUARY 2024

The Official Supporters Club attended the meeting called by the Football Club primarily to discuss the future of the FANSFUND.

In attendance from the Football Club was Greg Coar (Head of Commercial), Jake Campbell (Head of Academy), Jason Taylor (Supporter Liaison Officer) and other members of the fan engagement and media team in support.

Greg Coar opened the evening by explaining to the attendees that this was indeed “a consultation” and that the club are keen to take on board the views of fans.

He then acknowledged that the club are aware that supporters are keen to find out about the vision and plans for the Football Club, including when we can expect the appointment of a CEO and a full board.

Attendees were reassured that there are very experienced staff, working extremely hard at the Football Club and the perception amongst some fans of a “rudderless ship” is not the reality at all.

There is a Legal Board with Ben Goodburn at the helm as Chairman and Lucas Danson, and there is also a very experienced and highly skilled Technical Board, which includes Ben Goodburn, Gregor Rioch, Richard Bramwell (Head of Finance), Sarah Guilfoyle (Head of Football Administration), Shaun Maloney, Jake Campbell and a Head of Football Recruitment.

Overall, the business of the Football Club is working well, and it will take time to build the club we want to see.

He acknowledged that the appointment of the CEO is taking longer than expected, but that the process is still ongoing and will be resolved, but it takes time.

The attendees were then shown a presentation on how the FANSFUND had contributed significantly to the Academy over the past 2.5 years. Jake Campbell provided some very interesting detail on the spending of the funds devolved to the Academy from the previous fund (£248K).  This has included the enhancement of education and training facilities for the Academy players as well as a further £76K spent on first team enhancements, making £322K net.   There were of course running/consumable costs to the original FANSFUND, but the plan is to reduce these significantly with the new scheme, to drive more funding through to the Academy.

The previous relationship with STADIMAX has now ended and any future FANSFUND is completely in-house at the Football Club.

Ticketmaster plays a key role in delivering some of the benefits of the new FANSFUND and therefore, the launch of them as our new ticket provider had to come before any news of the FANSFUND relaunch.

The plans for the new FANSFUND will include a host of benefits some existing and some new, most of which are integral to the Football Club, for example prize draws for hospitality or mascot packages, rather than too many physical items, therefore ensuring that more of the monies go to the Academy – the aim is that 85-90% of the FANSFUND income will go to the Academy.

Jake Campbell talked about the “Pre Academy” where under 6 and 7 players are not legally registered to any club. Providing an outstanding offer to players and their families at this age, can attract them to sign with Wigan rather than other North West clubs that they are playing for on other nights of the week!  As 90% of our current academy graduates to the first team, and a similar percentage of our current signed scholars were with Wigan from aged 7, it is vital that we get this provision right and this is an area that Jake sees the FANSFUND contributing to in the future.

It was emphasised that the key to the FANSFUND going forward will be transparency and regular communication and that there are plans to make sure that this is a priority going forward.

The following questions were put forward by fans before the meeting and we have endeavoured to make sure that as many of them as possible were answered through the meeting:

FANS FUND QUESTIONS

PLEASE NOTE THAT A FULL FAQ WILL BE PUBLISHED BY THE CLUB IN DUE COURSE

1. Will Fans Fund Founders still be recognised as such?

Yes, there are no current plans to remove the Fans Founders name board in reception for example.

2. Will existing Fans Fund subscribers still receive the committed benefits that they have been paying for this season?

All subscribers who had their FANSFUND cancelled by the club earlier this month, will be invited via email to sign up to the new scheme in the coming weeks. This will afford them ongoing benefits such as club shop discount until 1^st May when the new scheme starts for payments.

We asked about those who had been paying this season, but had cancelled themselves due to not being happy with the previous scheme.  The club said they would be looking into the possibility of these fans also receiving the sign up as above and will publish the outcome of this in due course.  We will continue to push for this to happen.

3. Can the club give a full statement of how the received monies from the Fans Fund has been utilised and what money remains to be invested in the club, if any. Since the takeover, they continue to take the money, I would like to know where this has been spent.

As the general information from the meeting above states, the spend has been primarily on the Academy.

TICKETING QUESTIONS

There was limited time for questions regarding ticketing.  However, the following important information was shared:

There will be NO BOOKING CHARGE/NO EXTRA CHARGES for digital tickets.

Printed tickets will still be available – there will be a small fee for these – TBC.

Season tickets can still be purchased in interest free instalments.

A FULL TICKETING FAQ WILL BE PUBLISHED BY THE CLUB IN THE COMING DAYS

Finally, it was put to the Football Club representatives that it was important that this meeting be the first of a commitment to regular consultations with fan groups and representatives from across the supporter base.

It was suggested that different themes are discussed at each meeting, for example season ticket pricing, away ticketing priority, fan experience.  We requested that it would be useful to aim to hold one further meeting before the end of the season.    The club agreed that it had been a very useful meeting for them, and they would look to make them a more regular occurrence.