Notes from March meeting with FFC
A message from your FST board
The notes from our regular meeting with the Club last Wednesday follow this message.
Thank you to the large number of members who responded to our recent survey about ticket prices. We presented the headline results of that survey to the Club at our meeting, and members will see from the notes that the Club and the Trust and its members are very far apart in their views.
The Trust board will now carefully consider what our next steps should be, including with the still-to-be-formed Fan Advisory Board (FAB), which the Club are finally setting up. The Trust will have a seat on the FAB, but the majority of FAB Members are being selected by the Club itself, unlike the majority of other clubs who have used a more independent selection process. Trust members can however rest assured that we will continue to promote their views. We will try to get the Club to listen more to the real concerns you are firmly expressing not only on ticket prices and processes, but also on infrastructure and safety and all things that make up the experience of watching a match at the Cottage.
Notwithstanding our strong disagreements with the Club, as we make clear in the notes, the Trust board also wants to underline that we continue to condemn, and will not condone, personal attacks in any form including banners and media posts.
We were told at the Club meeting that the FAB might well run its own survey of the fan base. We will want to shape and promote such a survey to cover a wide range of views working alongside the rest of the FAB and other fan groups. So supporters are not inundated with too many surveys, we will however hold off sending out our own recent survey to non-Trust members.
Also many clubs have now announced their season ticket prices for 24/25, and we may wish to run a specific survey on whatever the Club come up with – they know our views!
One clear message from our members is that we should all continue to get behind the team with our difficult run-in to the end of the season. That is something we can all agree on.
On Wednesday 13 March at 13.30, the Fulham Supporters’ Trust (FST) met with Fulham FC via video conference.
The Club was represented by:
- Alistair Mackintosh (Chief Executive Officer, AM)
- David Daly (Non-Executive Director, DD)
- Matt Lowery (Chief Marketing Officer, ML)
- Carmelo Mifsud (Communications Director, CM)
The FST was represented by:
- Simon Duke (Chair, SD)
- Jerry Cope (Treasurer & Membership Secretary, JC)
- Sarah Keig (Board Member, SK)
- Jakub Krupa (Board Member, JK)
Background
At the Trust’s request this meeting focussed, with a senior Club audience, on the results of the recent survey of Trust members. Other issues received from Trust members are being taken up directly with the relevant Club officers.
You can access notes of all previous meetings on our web site, including the most recent information on key topics not covered at this meeting.
SD opened the meeting by explaining that the recent survey of Trust members was undertaken to gauge member feeling on the back of what have been a number of challenging situations this season, mainly season ticket prices, matchday ticket prices, ground facilities/safety and the plans for the Fan Advisory Board (FAB). The Trust remain passionate about our Club but are very uncomfortable with the current relationship between us. The Trust’s desire is to work with the Club to find solutions to the current challenges to enable a return to positive and constructive dialogue which we believe requires action on both sides.
The survey results
Prior to the meeting it had been agreed that JK, as the Trust spokesperson for today, would run through the results of the survey first, then SK and JC would discuss and ask questions. JK emphasised the following points:
Two thirds of active Trust members responded to the survey, 98% of whom held or had previously held a season ticket or Club membership; only Trust members are included in the results;
65% said that the increase in ticket prices had negatively affected their view of the Club, but 59% said that their attitude towards the Club remains positive;
Only 6% felt Fulham had adequately responded to concerns about ticket prices;
92% said that protests, if any, about prices should not disrupt the team, with limited support (22%) for disrupting games and less than half (44%) supporting mass walkouts. 65% supported boycotting Club merchandise; even more supported continuing media campaigns;
The three key areas of concern to Trust members remained ticketing, engagement with fans and infrastructure/safety investment.
The Club response and further discussion
AM replied that he thought the survey seriously flawed, asked too many leading and biased questions, and was primed with the word ‘protest’, when advertised. He agreed, in response to SD, that the relationship between the Trust and the Club had deteriorated markedly, but the Trust consistently undervalued the enormous financial support that the current owners had given the Club. Support and season ticket sales were at a record high for recent times and the Club was now selling out for nearly all games. He stressed that the owners had invested hugely in the new Fulham Pier and Riverside development in an effort to make the Club sustainable financially.
SD commented that the commitment of the owners is not in question and the Trust, and the fans, remain very appreciative of their financial support. The strong feeling is however that the current approach to pricing is misplaced.
AM continued that going forward he saw the new Fan Advisory Board as a potentially more productive way to engage with a wide range of fans, although meetings with the Trust would also continue albeit with appropriately reduced frequency. He said that the FAB might well do its own survey. The first meeting of the FAB is expected to take place before the end of April.
SK stressed that, notwithstanding the significant current differences between the Trust and the Club, both personal and general abuse was totally unacceptable, and she was happy to record the help that the Club gave to those abused, not least on Twitter (X). But, she added, the strongly held views of long-term fans needed to be acknowledged by the Club – the Trust was not expecting the Club to agree with everything the Trust suggested, but it did expect much clearer communication about why many of its ideas were not followed through.
AM thanked SK for her constructive feedback.
SD added that on individual operational matters, the Trust received excellent help from the ticket office, the supporter relations manager, the safety officer and many others, the issue was with unexplained Club policies.
JC emphasised that the Trust board and its members did not feel listened to, and that many members wanted the Trust to be much more forthright with the Club about some of its policies.
AM disagreed – the Club did listen, but the Trust did not seem to understand that the Club had to be made sustainable.
In response SD said sustainability was a shared objective and the Trust invariably appreciated, as already said, the significant financial support that the Club had received from the owners.
It was agreed in conclusion that both the Club and the Trust had expressed their views strongly at the meeting, but there was clearly a large difference of views around the table.
The meeting closed at 14:30.
