I’m all for greater fan involvement and think it can only be a positive. Particularly for a club like ICT where engagement between the club and the support has typically been pretty poor. I’m also generally in support of the Supporters Trust fund plan (although you could have come up with a better name for it!), and applaud the efforts of the folks who have taken it on and turned things around, but I’m just feeling a bit unclear on how it’s going to work and what it’s objectives actually are.
At the moment it reads to me that we’re being asked to sign up for cash donations (regular or one off) to go into a separate fund that at some indeterminate point in the future could be used for something that the supporters trust board of the time deem worthy? Be it shares, players, running costs, whatever? It just feels a bit vague, albeit I’m very open to being proved wrong.
Given the club stance, for as long as I can remember, seems to be that they don’t recognise the Supporters Trust as representative of all fans due to low membership levels it would be helpful to understand what the board/CEO do consider an appropriate level if a seat on the board is the target. Is there a risk this could just become a sluice fund for offsetting running costs from mismanagement? Are there trigger points where if certain funding levels are achieved then doors start opening? Are the club engaged and supportive in this process, or just sitting back to see what happens? Perhaps the summary of the discussion will answer these points when posted.
I suppose what I’m saying is that football is expensive enough already, and asking the same pool of supporters to stick another £20/30/50, or whatever, a month into another pot with with no firm target or objective feels like a challenging ask.