Yes sorry WTID my post was misleading - I meant that (as far as I know) they managed to keep it during the Russian's reign.

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Pretty sure the Chelsea pitch owners thing was set up well before Abramovich, got a feeling it was more the Ken Bates era or even before him.

Makes sense Stu but in the same breath I agree it's a tricky one to solve.

What has always frustrated me is our members model. You pay for 12 months and can make massive decisions during that period if a RA vote comes up. I love that we have international members, but I will be blunt here, I don’t like them having a vote on what my matchday experience is like or the future of our ownership model. On the tour I have many international fans and had a couple from Dallas who found us via JG. Lovely, lovely couple and great company. Coming to the game on Saturday and first time at PL and they spoke of the love that we are fan-owned. It’s great but they are symbolic of international fans that are unlikely to vote against fan ownership. I have for a while felt that you should only be able to vote on RA’s if you have had membership for a certain number of years [something like 3-5 years] and some other metric as to how many home/away games you have been to in that period.

I am not as hung up about PL remaining out of reach for a new owner. We restrict our reach of investment without making it part of the deal. The clever move would be for Merton to keep the sporting infrastructure as a rule which will provide that sort of protection.

Yeah too many stories of people getting burned out by the way the club has treated them and ending up finding it easier just to walk away or lessen their engagement. Whether former board members, long-serving volunteers or election nominees, it's a shadow on the club and trust.

OTD is the late Charlie Strutton

Don’t agree TM about what qualifies you as a fan. We should embrace all fans wether they are legacy, KM or recent PL additions to our fanbase.

Agree re Plough Lane. Pitch to be retained by the trust or a covenant like we had on the old PL(until the council caved in to Sam the Sham) that stipulates the land must always be for sporting use

The key thing for me is Plough Lane. Plough Lane has to be safe. Whether that is through a Chelsea pitch owners type thing or some sort of variation of that I am not fussed but that is my red line. Maybe we can add the trademarks to the Wimbledon name to that. Beyond that I am not fussed though I cannot see a realistic scenario where the Trust will have no role at all in the club. Even if we do eventually sell even beyond 50% I imagine the Trust will continue in some form. Anyway I will definitely vote for 50%+1 as I did last time.

Thanks Keefy. Good to hear, I got a few lifts from Colin back in mid 90’s early 00’s to away games l, pleased he’s still going

Spotted Shergy at a recent home game!

Why would anyone invest in a simple 50%+1 with no solution to systemic losses? "Here is a couple of million pounds for shares, which I expect to be worth nothing in a year or two".

An earlier post mentioned Shergy & it made me think that he was a regular contributor to this guestbook, I can’t remember the last time I saw a post from him, did his experience & the way he was treated during that election make him walk away from the club? Or is he still a supporter albeit a disillusioned one who to quote a few others, “just wants to watch football ?”

But "contracting out" the work presumably incurred a cost - which we can't afford and should absolutely not be anything like a priority in the current situation.

I'm not sure too much should be read into updating the constitution – the old was stretched and out of date, and updating it could be seen as 'being professional'. The update is probably only taking up much time for one board member, because most of the grunt work was contracted out.

I thought the cash figure was quite good, presuming it was what was left of cash put aside to get the club through the summer.

TM Definately, that goes for the enshriners as well, if they persist with their views and if the only option is ultmately to sell out, then they should support that decision.

Also notable that we actually seem to have made a "profit" on the flooding incident, as donations and insurance receipts exceeded the costs incurred (slightly confusingly, the costs and the income are shown in two different notes to the accounts)

Thanks to Timmy Magic for posting the 2025 accounts last night - lots to pick through there. One thing that jumps out on first review is that, even using the DTB's preferred measure of "cash" losses (pretending that depreciation isn't a real cost), our "core" loss last year was £2.2M [£2.8M loss per accounts, taking out players sales profit of £1.0M and then adding back depreciation of £1.6M (net of capital spending)]. For context, our cash balance at 30 June was only £1.3M, so we had cash to cover less than a year of losses (and are now 5 months into that)

Controversial statement, but if you supported Wimbledon prior to AFC Wimbledon and you’ll stop supporting Wimbledon if we stop being fan-owned then you’re not a true supporter of Wimbledon.

$6m man - I totally agree with what you say below that we need a proper debate about what to do when the money runs out (which is going to be very soon), but that it is clear that this isn't going to happen. To some extent i don't blame the DTB members - they are just a bunch of fans elected on the basis of a popularity/ name recognition contest and there is no reason that they would have the skills or ability to deal with a substantial business in financial problems. To me there is less excuse for the other members of the PLC board, who are supposedly there to bring business experience, but seem to have done nothing to deal with the looming crisis. The fact that there was a meeting this week to discuss a new constitution, rather than our financial crisis, really just shows the utter disfunction of the fan-owned model once you get into choppy waters.

Think that’s a good summary of where fan ownership has currently got us situated 6mdm - most of the same problems as private ownership just with no money.

My guess is my option 2 will be what most would favour because their dream can live on. My concern is we will be at the whim of somebody to do what they liked. What if this philanthropist turned out to be a looney? What if they got fed up with the club continuing to make losses, with no strategy to reduce them? What if they hiked up ticket prices and everything else? What if, what if .... I know this is how 99%of clubs are run and, on balance, why should we be any different? For every Sheffield Wednesday there is a Wrexham. For every Bury or Macclesfield there is a Man City or Newcastle. We'd just have to accept once we sell out, that is it and we are into the territory of hoping we don't get screwed over.