Aberdeen announce plans to keep club afloat during pandemic

Aberdeen Football Club have announced a number of measures to keep the club going during the coronavirus pandemic.

A voluntary deferral of salaries and a further £2m from investors been been announced to help close the looming £5m gap in cashflow.

Club Manager, Derek McInnes, his coaching staff and players, have agreed to partially defer payment of salaries and bonuses for four months from April 1.

Higher paid, non-football staff will also be taking partial salary deferrals, which will improve the Club’s cashflow by £1.1m.

The club also hope to sell 10,000 season tickets to bolster financial support.

Last week AFC Chairman, Dave Cormack, set out the bleak financial position facing the Club as a result of the suspension of football to contain the coronavirus pandemic.

Cormack said: “The Club has worked diligently to minimise the impact on its lower paid employees and we’re pleased to confirm that more than 50% of our hard working and loyal staff are unaffected by this deferral.

“The balance of employees have agreed to defer salaries by between 10% and 30%, plus certain bonuses including football performance.”

McInnes added: “It is incumbent on all of us to help the Club through this challenging period. I want to thank the players, my coaching staff and all staff at the Club for being so forthcoming and willing to do what is required to get us through these exceptional circumstances and for supporting our fans and the wider community.”

Dons’ fans have shown their loyalty and support for the Club by snapping up season tickets and AberDNA membership.

Mr Cormack said: “Sometimes out of adversity you see the best in people – it’s been amazing, from a club perspective everyone has wanted to help, our fans as well, from corporate sponsors offering to pay for their boxes for two years, it’s been humbling.

“The most important thing for us right now as a club is our community, being part of the fabric of our community, which is why we’ve now got 20 people set up remotely to call our fans (during this time).

“We got together about a week ago to come up with a plan and it had to be about fairness, making sure we looked after those on lesser salaries at the club.

“From Derek (McInnes) and the players to the management team, they’ve wanted to do their bit and that’s the thing, for me, that’s been humbling.”

And he praised manager Derek McInnes for dealing individually with all the players.

“On the football side, Derek has handled this 100% himself. I’ve heard stories about other chairman and chief executives having to deal with players and players agents on their own.

“From day one, we came up with what we thought was fair and reasonable and hopefully people see this as a ‘soft-landing’ that’s fair to everybody”

The Club has set itself targets to reach 10,000 season ticket sales for 2020/21 and grow its AberDNA initiative to 7,000 members by July 31.

Rewards and incentives for those buying or have already bought season tickets, renewed or subscribed to AberDNA are being considered.