Trust News

Pictured at the Memorial Garden is Alan Terrell, Geoff Lloyd and Graham Terrell, who is pointing to his Trust badge

Trust vice-chair Mike Spear has welcomed three visitors to the Memorial Garden at the Cardiff City Stadium.

Mike, a veteran, was working at the garden when he had a chance encounter with long-term Trust member Graham Terrell, visiting from Sutton in Surrey.

With him and his brother Alan, who travelled to Cardiff from Pembrokeshire, was Graham’s friend, Geoff Lloyd, all the way from South Africa. Geoff has not been back in Cardiff since leaving in the 1970s.

Mike gave the City fans a brief history of the garden and showed them some of the recent construction work carried out on the site, including the impressive memorial wall.

Dedicated Bluebirds fan Graham travels to each home game from Surrey and despite the early kick-off will be at the Sunderland game along with his brother, Alan and Geoff Lloyd.

Gareth Williams pictured with the FA Cup at Wembley

Trust board member Gareth Williams was a delegate at the Football Supporters’ Association’s (FSA) annual conference at Wembley Stadium over last weekend.

This is Gareth’s report:

Introduction

The Football Supporters Association (FSA) is the national, democratic, representative body for football supporters in England and Wales. The FSA are the leading advocates for good governance, supporter ownership, better fan engagement, cheaper ticket prices, the choice to stand at the match, protecting fan rights, diversity and all types of fan empowerment. Cardiff City Supporters Trust are full affiliate members of the FSA

The conference was very enjoyable and also very informative as far as the position of the current regulatory position which has been outlined in the King’s Speech in Parliament. This follows on the commitment of all political parties to support its passage through the legislative process.

This was fully established by Stephanie Peacock MP, the new Under Secretary for Culture and Sport addressing the conference with full support to enact the football reform bill through Parliament.

In her speech, she outlined that it is designed to enhance supporter engagement and will give crucial financial protections to clubs as well as setting up an independent regulator and confirms the Government’s commitment to keep clubs at the heart of their communities.

A great deal of work has been undertaken by the FSA to get the process of getting the Football Regulatory Bill to be fit for purpose to protect the interests of football supporters and regulate the clubs to get the football industry on a more positive footing which will present a brighter outlook for both clubs and their supporters.

Workshops attended

Supporter engagement in the EFL– This process was outlined by personnel from the FSA and the EFL. Examples were drawn from work already conducted within the EPL. There were case studies with supporters’ trusts looking at EPL clubs such as West Ham stating that concessions for children and senior fans were being totally withdrawn without any notice to fans.

It was outlined that the establishment of Fans’ Advisory Board at all clubs with emphasis on the following points:

• The FAB shall be totally independent from the club and the club shall have no input into their membership.
• FAB’s must consult with the fan base on all levels to have a broad basis of fan’s views. Clubs will be scrutinised to ensure that they are fully engaging with their FAB and enacting on the fans’ proposals with positive engagement at all levels.

It is clear that there are many clubs throughout the professional game that are resisting fans’ engagement and following a challenging route within this aspect. From observations, I would state that we at Cardiff City
are not by any means in the worst position for fans’ engagement, but, as a supporters’ representative group, we should always be seeking to strive for improvement.

•  Engaging Young Supporters – An interesting case study was presented by Charlton Athletic centred around the establishment of a youth section within the ground along the following lines:

1. i) Section was for 15-20 years of age only.
   ii) The section had initially 100 seats allocated
   iii) A pricing structure of £125 for a youth season ticket was suggested.
2. The idea was centred around building the future generation of football supporters and would form a sorted youth work provision with football at its core. It would look to support the young people in it around:

Behavioural issues within football
Engagement with female fans
Educative to combating discrimination within in both football and throughout communities.
To foster good relationships between all fans.
The possible use of participation in sport for building relationships between communities.

As a youth worker myself,  I consider this a positive aspect of supporter engagement but the Trust recognises the fact that the club have made efforts in enhancing engagement with younger supporters.

 V.A.R. – I had an interesting try out of VAR with ex-Premier Referee Chris Foy. I was able to give the VAR decisions correctly and in a fraction of the time it takes VAR on the actual Premier
League!! I may have found myself a new career, Haha!

Summary

It was made very clear that there are many clubs up and down the country which have big issues with their respective clubs and in many cases they seem to have far greater issues than ourselves. Issues causing concerns were:

i) Moving domestic matches abroad.
ii) Spiralling Ticketing prices
iii) Clubs discriminating against fans
iv) Reluctance to engage with the new regulatory process which is coming into the game
v) The changes of KOs due to TV coverage getting more challenging for supporter attendance
vi) Frustration that clubs are trying to circumvent the FFP rules, (Manchester City was mentioned)

The conference provided plenty of food for thought and there are a number of issues that the Trust could raise with the club via the Fans Advisory Board.

With the Football Regulator legislation as part of the Football Governance Bill confirmed in the King’s Speech, the Trust, in partnership with other supporter groups, will need to ensure that Cardiff City continues to adopt the principles enshrined in the forthcoming legislation that is based on the Fan-Led Review of Football.

Copies of Conference documents have been retained for future consideration.

Trust chair Keith Morgan sent the following message to members.

Dear Member,

All UK Companies are obliged in law to update their records at Companies House for relevant changes such as accounts updates and changes in Directors or security over their assets. We as a Trust monitor Cardiff City filings at Companies House to see if any changes have occurred. You will recall that, in the past, we have notified you of changes at Companies House, in relation, to the club such as filing of annual accounts, share issues, conversions of debt to equity etc.

We have noted that a Legal Charge, created in September 2009, regarding two leases for 125 years between the Council and the Club in respect of the “Football Stadium at Leckwith Road, Cardiff and the Coach Park and Hotel Site” has now been satisfied in full and removed as an existing charge from the register. Some members also spotted this on the Companies House website and contacted the Trust to ascertain the situation.

I have made enquiries with the club and in this case, the charge was granted to Cardiff County Council in September 2009 in respect of funding they provided to the football club in 2007 to assist with the initial costs of building the Cardiff City Stadium. The funding was provided by means of a loan to be repaid over a 20-year period.

In February 2024 the loan was fully repaid slightly ahead of the 20-year anniversary so the charge over the new stadium lease could be released and the Companies House records were subsequently updated in May 2024.

Cardiff City Football Club has a 150-year lease starting in 2009 over the stadium granted by the Council as landlords. Rent payable is a “peppercorn” i.e., nominal amount.

The amount of loan in question has not been revealed and the Club is under no obligation to do so. Referring back to the 2007 accounts a figure of £83,372 is shown as a loan from the Council but I cannot absolutely confirm that this is the figure. However, whatever the amount, it is an early repayment of a loan to the Club in respect of Stadium construction costs and should be viewed positively.

We will continue to monitor Companies House activities in respect of the Club and will endeavour to keep you informed of any other changes.

Jason Perry and Rob Phillips with Trust Chair Keith Morgan

There was an enthusiastic turnout last night for the Jason and Rob Show after the Trust’s annual general meeting at the Cardiff City Stadium.

We’re very grateful to Cardiff City legend Jason Perry and BBC Wales’ football commentator Rob Phillips for coming along to discuss all things Cardiff City.

Jason pulled no punches about the club’s owner Vincent Tan, saying the failure to appoint a football person as a director of football continued to hamper the progress of the club. He said the club didn’t have a plan and he argued that Cardiff City was now only a really attractive proposition manager-wise to someone that was young or desperate because of the way the club was run.

Jason said the issue of pace desperately needed to be addressed and while he accepted that a lot of money had been wasted in the past, there was a need to give the manager funds for the new season.

Despite the criticism of Vincent Tan, his financial backing over many years for the football club was acknowledged.

Both Jason and Rob agreed that Erol Bulut should be reappointed as manager and Rob said that he had expected an agreement to have been concluded months ago. He still felt that the appointment of Bulut would be made.

Jason said that he believed Bulut guaranteed Championship football – despite the owner – and described him as a safe pair of hands who had done well to take the club to 12^th in the table despite concerns over the style of football. Rob pointed to team performances away from home and contrasted them to those at home.

They both praised Joe Ralls for his contribution to the club, both on and off the field, while they tackled concerns over the injury record of Aaron Ramsey.

While accepting the injury situation was disappointing, Rob pointed to the fact that others had also been injured for long periods of the season, such as Calum O’Dowda. Rob also pointed to Aaron Ramsey’s appearance record at Nice in the 2022=23 season when he had played more games for the French club and Wales than at any time since his last season at Arsenal. Rob said a fit Ramsey would make a huge difference to Cardiff City as had been shown early in the 2023-24 season.

Talk moved to possible departures which could free up funds and it was felt that it would be a good time to cash in on Perry NG after his outstanding season but the funds needed to be reinvested.

A raffle was held at the evening and £160 was raised for a local foodbank.