With a third of the season behind us, the Dons Trust board and the Club board wanted to update members and supporters on the club’s financial position ahead of the Dons Trust SGM on Monday 17th November.
The context
As we outlined in the report published earlier this year: The Finances of Football and AFC Wimbledon June 2025, the financial landscape across League One and League Two remains extremely tough.
The report highlighted that clubs in League One are losing an average of £5.2m a year, and those in League Two around £2.2m. For a fan-owned club like ours, that makes long-term sustainability extremely challenging.
When members voted on 50+1 last year, both boards highlighted in a report that we expected further and significant financial challenges ahead.
It was based on those expected challenges that the view of both boards was to recommend members voted in favour of the 50+1 proposal. AFC Wimbledon Finance Update – September 2024 | The Dons Trust
In short – conditions remain extremely challenging. If anything, the competitive landscape is getting harder and the vast majority of League One and League Two clubs are running at even greater operating losses.
Our current position and next steps
Despite good progress made in growing the club’s revenues and managing costs, our outlook remains unchanged. Our finances will become very tight at the end of this season.
It is the opinion of both boards that despite the constant generosity of our fans and bond holders, competing in the EFL at Plough Lane with our current structure is not currently sustainable.
We believe that we will have to find partner investors who share our values and commitment to fan ownership to help us improve our finances and allow us to grow further.
In October we notified members we would be proactively seeking investment partners and will be returning to the 50.01 vote in the new year. October member update – Dons Trust board. Proactively seeking investors
Since then the board have been in conversations with potential investors prepared to take a minority stake in the club and also contribute working capital to help us break even and have a more competitive playing budget. This season our playing budget ranks 23rd in League One.
Our financial results for 2024-2025 have been audited and these will be posted in full prior to our December AGM.
The headlines are an operating loss, before player sales, of £1.6m. This is reduced to £0.6m, before depreciation, when accounting for £1m of player sales. These numbers were in line with our planned budget for the year, which meant we had the 14th ranked playing budget in League Two.
There are positives. 2024-25 turnover increased by 13% to £10.2m: a record level for the club.
Of that, the stadium team secured record revenue of £7.2m, representing a 10.6% increase year-on-year, with increases across most departments including season ticket sales, ticketing, commercial, catering and retail. Encouragingly, stadium profitability also increased as we managed costs effectively.
Debt levels have reduced by £2.0m. We have repaid £1.4m of Plough Lane Bonds and converted another £0.6m of bonds to equity and donations – a fabulous act of generosity from our bondholders.
Despite this, the increases in playing budgets and operating losses across the leagues, that we highlighted in our report above, show that stadium revenue growth is unlikely ever to be enough to achieve break-even sustainability in League One or Two.
Our underlying financial challenges have been tempered by significant player sales over the last three years, but we cannot rely on this every year.
Over the past 23 years, we’ve faced and overcome huge challenges. The current situation is another challenge, but also another opportunity to shape our future together. With the same unity and determination that have defined AFC Wimbledon since 2002, we will find the best way forward.
We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the Dons Trust SGM on November 17.