Peterborough United co-owners thank the club’s ‘special forces’

Within the statement the co-owners thanks season ticket holders for their support and patience and promised to issue several options re future support within the next couple of weeks.

The statement read:

‘Dear Season Ticket Holders

Firstly, we would be remiss in not thanking you! It doesn’t matter at this stage of 2020 whether you own a football team, work for a football team, or support one; this is the worst of times. But we need to thank you for what you did for your club in April of this really poor year.

Last year, all but a handful of long-time supporters backed our club with a donation of their season ticket cash, and that gesture allowed us to do several things, including: Not lay off any staff, alleviate a multi-million-pound shortfall, add financial support to the Academy, allow the club to only sell one player, not a multitude of players, be one of the most vocal clubs when it comes to the EFL handling of the close of last season, and the proposals regarding this season.

We have referred to you all as the ‘special forces’ within the Posh fanbase, and without you this club wouldn’t be able to consider a run at the Championship, a new stadium, or even survival. We are not intending to sound alarm bells that don’t exist, but so many clubs wish they had a fanbase like ours to support our survival.

Having said that, we are in a good position. The three owners stepped up at the start of the 2020/2021 season, partially based on your support, but mostly based on a vision we shared with all of you last year. This club, this city, our fanbase wants to be in the Championship, enjoying everything that goes with that accomplishment. With your support, the Ivan Toney sale (which is spread over a number of years and with a large % paid to Newcastle United) and the support of the three owners, Peterborough United Football Club will survive 2020/2021.

But all of this was supposed to end by October. We know now that we won’t be back in our stadiums, we aren’t getting any government support, ‘Project Big Picture’ is being pushed instead of a bank-led solution, and the Premier League package is truly draconian with the terms it seeks to impose on the pyramid and the EFL. In short, things are not any clearer now than what they were in April.

So, we thank you, not only for the support in April, but also for your patience now. We needed the clarity of the October 31 deadline before dealing with season ticket refunds, and with no relief to our supporters from either live match games or financial support from anywhere, we the owners, are working on a refund package and options for club support to January 2021.

This package will be ready in the next few weeks. We know that October 31 was an important date for some of you regarding your home situations too. The package will come with options, and your choice within those options determine for us as owners what we need to pull back on, sell, finance, or even continue to push forward with. We think we should push forward, be in the Championship in a brand new home with a Category 2 Academy and hope the packages you support share that same vision.

In the interim, we continue to work on solutions to iFollow and innovative ideas such as watching the matches at the Weston Homes Stadium in our lounge. Bob Symns has done a remarkable job with our local MPs, and we will remain vocal that we will not just take any handouts that jeopardise the future of the Club.

Please bear with us, but if you have questions reach out. We are in this together as the EFL Family Club of the Year and we believe we have a really good football club on the pitch as well.’