Skip to main content

AFC Wimbledon are at a crossroads

I have been sceptical about the long-term viability of fan owned clubs, recent events at Exeter City seem to confirm this.   Even prosperous fans in south-west London find it difficult to provide the funds needed to compete.

AFC Wimbledon are at a crossroads, squeezed by what many League One and League Two owners believe is unsustainable spending that cannot continue. The fan owners face a dilemma: invite wealthy investors with deep pockets on board, or lose pace with the spiralling costs of running an EFL club.

More than 4,500 of the 7,500-plus owners turned out to vote on Monday night, opting to dilute fan ownership to 50.01 per cent — similar to the model adopted by German clubs — and freeing up shares to sell to outside investors with funds to keep the club competitive.

The club have spoken to about ten potential investors, including a consortium led by their former captain Robbie Earle. Many around the club fear this vote is merely a stepping stone to relinquishing fan control altogether.

Younger fans seem to care less about the value of fan ownership and want the club to find deep-pocketed owners to join the EFL arms race. 

At a packed meeting with the club’s board in February, fans were given sobering numbers about Wimbledon’s future. Their annual losses are about £2million — £4million less than the League One average, and £16million less than the highest.

They have the second-smallest playing budget. In the past five years — three of which they spent in League Two — the club made a profit of £50,000, but the cashflow chart is heading rapidly into the red.

A significant part of the English football pyramid is in a precarious position. Wage inflation — rising by about 80 per cent in two years in League One — is the single biggest squeeze, forced up by clubs such as Wrexham and Birmingham City, who invested heavily to win promotion to the Championship last season.

League One owners have met regularly to devise a new set of financial rules. Executives at Wimbledon have encouraged owners to see sense, but clubs are divided and there are those who want to pump money in as those have before them.

There are also concerns that the Professional Footballers’ Association will mount another legal challenge against further spending limits. Clubs tried to curb spending by voting in a wage cap six years ago, before action from the players’ union forced it to be withdrawn.

Efforts are being made to align League One and Two owners before a potential vote next month. The plan is to reduce the percentage of revenue clubs can spend on transfers and wages, and reduce the amount of equity owners can put in.

As many as 20 clubs in the lower tiers are seeking buyers but “people have realised it’s an unsustainable model”, another club owner says. “The pool of owners is drying up. If existing owners can’t afford to keep a club going, they will go into administration.”

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance.  Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected.  “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.”  He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...
Post a Comment
Read more