Meeting with Cormack, Fraser and Wickes

[Red Zone]

I was at the meeting last night with Dave Cormack, Duncan Fraser and Rob Wickes attended by about 200 season ticket holders and DNA members. The meeting was set up to discuss off field matters and consisted of the three guys presenting various items and then responding to pre-submitted questions. The following were the main points discussed

1. The ground levelling for the training facility is a few weeks behind schedule but expect to have main contractor starting work in next 2-3 weeks and still expect to have it complete by July next year. Cost has increased from £10M to £11.5M largely due to extra items added in e.g. now going to install hybrid training pitch to match new stadium hybrid pitch.
2. Nothing much new on ****S appeal other than expect outcome of appeal early May next year but carrying on work anyway.
3. Expect to start discussions on new stadium phase Q2 next year. This to include discussions with fans on inside of stadium – strong indication from Cormack that safe standing will be included. Lot of talk about being much more fan friendly than Pittodrie.
4. Have started discussions and work on naming rights income stream and had discussions with new stadium funding providers (described as free consultancy with people Cormack knows) but otherwise no update on funding for remaining £3M or so of training facilities or stadium (which is now being talked of as £40M-£45M).
5. Talked quite a bit about why won’t redevelop Pittodrie. Gist of it was that redevelopment would cost about the same as new build plus wouldn’t get the benefit of £15M or so from selling Pittodrie and that would end up with a capacity of 14,000 or so due to Council not willing to give up surrounding roads so fixed footprint and with e.g. UEFA rules on how far away stands need to be from pitch would end up with smaller capacity and planning permission would still be needed. Gave Hearts new stand as example as they were able to get more ground out the back to build their stand but it cost £17M (and counting).
6. First time I had heard Cormack speak. Was quite impressive, clearly a Dons fan and clearly behind the more robust stand and communication we have seen recently. Describes it as a challenge mentality he wants to bring to club. Also mentioned more than once that wants club to be more transparent going forward.
7. Fraser talked a bit around league cup tickets. Were clearly surprised by only selling 10,000 semi tickets although never expected to sell 20,000 but felt obliged to ask for 50/50 given fan reaction. Are pleased with how many final tickets sold so far. Weren’t able to get North stand tickets as SPFL didn’t trust us to sell all of our tickets so wanted to keep option of giving unsold tickets to celtic like what happened with sevco
8. On the subject of why we didn’t challenge allocation East or West stands when playing sevco/celtic he advised it was mainly to do with debenture tickets. Apparently Queens Park sold 8,000 debentures when redeveloping Hampden and (only in Scotland) when people bought they were asked to declare if they were rangers or celtic fans and were allocated seats in West or East end of South Stand. These people have until 14 days before each Hampden match to take up tickets or not. So for instance if we asked for east end of Hampden in final there is an expectation that all celtic debenture holders would buy seats in what would be our side of the South stand reducing seats available for our fans whilst sevco fans in the main wouldn’t buy their seats but those extra seats would go to celtic fans if they were allocated the west end so by taking the West side against celtic we should get more tickets in the (better) South stand seats than if we take the East side. Makes sense I guess but only in feckin Scotland could something like this happen
9. Gave a detailed break-down of DNA income and costs. I can’t quite remember the exact numbers but in ball park we have raised nearly £1.3M (albeit not all money collected yet) but that nets to just over £1M after VAT. Then have costs of £340K (shirts £140K, season ticket discounts £110K, staff costs £60K and other member benefits e.g. shop discount £70K) so giving a net benefit to AFC of £680K.
10. Cormack was absolutely adamant that every penny of the £680K is going towards football operations and not to e.g. the new stadium but here’s the twist for me and answers the point I have continually made about not seeing where the extra money is when comparing this year’s squad with last year. He advised that last year the Board approved a £750K increase in the football budget funded by the Hayes transfer money and so all that the DNA money does is replace the Hayes money rather than further increase the football budget. Also talked about pay rises for Lewis and signing on fees as where some of the money goes plus we apparently have nine players in our squad we have paid transfers for.
11. Fraser pre-warned us that a story would be printed in today’s newspapers about a new TV deal (which there is in the Sun) but to take it with a pinch of salt (what a surprise!!) as the clubs have had no discussions on any of the bids. He said that currently we offer up to 6 home matches for live TV (Sky and BT each have 30 matches) but we may reduce that to 4 (so much less live games in total) depending on bids submitted and also concerned what kick-off times we would be allocated by Sky or BT given English deals have more live games and therefore less good kick-off times left for Scotland.
12. Bit of discussion on possible new third European competition. Thought it unlikely to be before 2024. Three main discussion points – allocation of money, which countries/clubs have access to which competition and the third one which he said not to underestimate was co-efficient points. If more diddy teams reach Group stages with third competition then more co-efficient points go to diddy countries and therefore a bigger threat to the cartel of bigger countries missing out on their automatic Group places

Overall a good meeting with the three guys chatting both before and after meeting and happy to answer any questions. Apologies for very long post but hopefully some info that will interest most people on here

[Mason89]

Thanks for that, I was going to ask if anyone went.

Not be a surprise to anyone but I think they’re talking shyte about redeveloping Pittodrie

[Rochead]

Many thanks, appreciate the effort of such a lengthy post.

[Jackjarvis]

I was at the meeting last night with Dave Cormack, Duncan Fraser and Rob Wickes attended by about 200 season ticket holders and DNA members. The meeting was set up to discuss off field matters and consisted of the three guys presenting various items and then responding to pre-submitted questions. The following were the main points discussed

1. The ground levelling for the training facility is a few weeks behind schedule but expect to have main contractor starting work in next 2-3 weeks and still expect to have it complete by July next year. Cost has increased from £10M to £11.5M largely due to extra items added in e.g. now going to install hybrid training pitch to match new stadium hybrid pitch.
2. Nothing much new on ****S appeal other than expect outcome of appeal early May next year but carrying on work anyway.
3. Expect to start discussions on new stadium phase Q2 next year. This to include discussions with fans on inside of stadium – strong indication from Cormack that safe standing will be included. Lot of talk about being much more fan friendly than Pittodrie.
4. Have started discussions and work on naming rights income stream and had discussions with new stadium funding providers (described as free consultancy with people Cormack knows) but otherwise no update on funding for remaining £3M or so of training facilities or stadium (which is now being talked of as £40M-£45M).
5. Talked quite a bit about why won’t redevelop Pittodrie. Gist of it was that redevelopment would cost about the same as new build plus wouldn’t get the benefit of £15M or so from selling Pittodrie and that would end up with a capacity of 14,000 or so due to Council not willing to give up surrounding roads so fixed footprint and with e.g. UEFA rules on how far away stands need to be from pitch would end up with smaller capacity and planning permission would still be needed. Gave Hearts new stand as example as they were able to get more ground out the back to build their stand but it cost £17M (and counting).
6. First time I had heard Cormack speak. Was quite impressive, clearly a Dons fan and clearly behind the more robust stand and communication we have seen recently. Describes it as a challenge mentality he wants to bring to club. Also mentioned more than once that wants club to be more transparent going forward.
7. Fraser talked a bit around league cup tickets. Were clearly surprised by only selling 10,000 semi tickets although never expected to sell 20,000 but felt obliged to ask for 50/50 given fan reaction. Are pleased with how many final tickets sold so far. Weren’t able to get North stand tickets as SPFL didn’t trust us to sell all of our tickets so wanted to keep option of giving unsold tickets to celtic like what happened with sevco
8. On the subject of why we didn’t challenge allocation East or West stands when playing sevco/celtic he advised it was mainly to do with debenture tickets. Apparently Queens Park sold 8,000 debentures when redeveloping Hampden and (only in Scotland) when people bought they were asked to declare if they were rangers or celtic fans and were allocated seats in West or East end of South Stand. These people have until 14 days before each Hampden match to take up tickets or not. So for instance if we asked for east end of Hampden in final there is an expectation that all celtic debenture holders would buy seats in what would be our side of the South stand reducing seats available for our fans whilst sevco fans in the main wouldn’t buy their seats but those extra seats would go to celtic fans if they were allocated the west end so by taking the West side against celtic we should get more tickets in the (better) South stand seats than if we take the East side. Makes sense I guess but only in feckin Scotland could something like this happen
9. Gave a detailed break-down of DNA income and costs. I can’t quite remember the exact numbers but in ball park we have raised nearly £1.3M (albeit not all money collected yet) but that nets to just over £1M after VAT. Then have costs of £340K (shirts £140K, season ticket discounts £110K, staff costs £60K and other member benefits e.g. shop discount £70K) so giving a net benefit to AFC of £680K.
10. Cormack was absolutely adamant that every penny of the £680K is going towards football operations and not to e.g. the new stadium but here’s the twist for me and answers the point I have continually made about not seeing where the extra money is when comparing this year’s squad with last year. He advised that last year the Board approved a £750K increase in the football budget funded by the Hayes transfer money and so all that the DNA money does is replace the Hayes money rather than further increase the football budget. Also talked about pay rises for Lewis and signing on fees as where some of the money goes plus we apparently have nine players in our squad we have paid transfers for.
11. Fraser pre-warned us that a story would be printed in today’s newspapers about a new TV deal (which there is in the Sun) but to take it with a pinch of salt (what a surprise!!) as the clubs have had no discussions on any of the bids. He said that currently we offer up to 6 home matches for live TV (Sky and BT each have 30 matches) but we may reduce that to 4 (so much less live games in total) depending on bids submitted and also concerned what kick-off times we would be allocated by Sky or BT given English deals have more live games and therefore less good kick-off times left for Scotland.
12. Bit of discussion on possible new third European competition. Thought it unlikely to be before 2024. Three main discussion points – allocation of money, which countries/clubs have access to which competition and the third one which he said not to underestimate was co-efficient points. If more diddy teams reach Group stages with third competition then more co-efficient points go to diddy countries and therefore a bigger threat to the cartel of bigger countries missing out on their automatic Group places

Overall a good meeting with the three guys chatting both before and after meeting and happy to answer any questions. Apologies for very long post but hopefully some info that will interest most people on here

No apology required, thanks for posting, was there no scope to ask a question from the floor or was every question vetted as in pre-submitted?

SF

[Mason89]

Why would you quote the post ffs?

[Don_Corleone]

Thanks for the detailed post - interesting stuff. Especially the bit about the DNA money and transfer budget etc.

[RED_JOHN]

Good informed post lad. Nothing in it that we don’t expect to happen though. Cost will rise etc which a few of us have suggested was obviously going to happen. Pittodrie was always getting sold...the club board had no ambition to ever redevelop the current stadium to meet the new criteria required (the money for the sale of Pittodrie made them easily persuaded that it wouldn’t be possible to redevelop it).
We could always change our name to the Westhill Warriors. If someone was going to give Milne money to do that the @raehole would bite their hand off!
Did any of them mention when the DNA cash would start getting spent?

[GASC1980]

Cheers for the info Red Zone. Anyone any idea of the life span of these debenture seats??? Were they bought for life? I can't remember. I do recall thinking of buying one at the time they were being offered for £2000 but can't recall any details. If they are for life how do we get round that issue/problem. Surely not everybody who bought one was a hun or tim. If I had bought one and declared i was an Aberdeen fan, where would I have been allocated one. What "end"? If i'd got one for the west end and we played the huns would I not be allowed to take up my seat and vice versa. There must surely be a way round all that.

[nice1simmy]

Why would you quote the post ffs?

Get a life ffs

[Red Zone]

No apology required, thanks for posting, was there no scope to ask a question from the floor or was every question vetted as in pre-submitted?

SF

No they overran by 30 mins so they didn't ask for any questions from the floor as out of time but they were happy to answer individual questions before and after the formal part of the evening