The 120th Aberdeen Football Club Annual General Meeting took place on Monday 11th December 2023 at Pittodrie Stadium in the Richard Donald Stand.

In attendance at the top table were Dimitrios Efstathiou, Tom Crotty, Kevin McIvor, Alan Burrows, Dave Cormack, Zoe Ogilvie, Stewart Milne, Willie Garner, manager Barry Robson and Steven Gunn.

The Chairman gave the following update to shareholders:

“I would like to start by remembering Craig Brown, who we all miss seeing terribly. Craig was our manager, a director and ambassador for ten years. A true gentleman that left his mark on Scottish Football, Aberdeen FC and many of us personally.

“Let me turn to the football side.

“Including manager Barry Robson and the senior players, we all agree that our league form has not been good enough. As with every manager we employ, Barry will be judged on results over the coming weeks, months, and, as we sincerely hope, seasons.

“In the cold light of day, Barry absolutely earned the right to be manager, especially when the highly experienced Steve Agnew committed to coming in as his assistant.

“Barry single handedly won third place in the league last season, earning two Manager of the Month awards and group stage football in Europe for the first time in 15 seasons. Our fans feedback and their stories on the games and trips to Sweden, Germany, Greece, and Finland has been heart warming. As individuals or as families. We love our European football. We put in some really good performances in Europe.

“We continue to make significant investments in the playing squad. Something we’ve been able to do because coming out of COVID we’ve driven our commercial, partnership, retail, season ticket and AberDNA income and numbers to record levels, and because our positive player trading model last year demonstrated that spending significantly more than our increased income levels can actually balance the books.

“In the 2022/23 financial year we made an operating loss of £6 million, which, after netting out player sales and acquisitions, produced a net profit of £1.1 million. All of which has been reinvested.

“The bottom line is that we are speculating that this player trading model will be a success, because it allows us to invest much more than we bring in. It’s a model that the investors and board are supportive of. But one that carries high expectations on playing performance.

“It’s also worth noting that once again the Club has no bank debt on its books.

“Back to the squad. Given the number of loan players we had last season, this summer required a significant overhaul. Between integrating 11 new players, as well as signing Graeme Shinnie and Leighton Clarkson – playing Thursdays and Sundays, and players being away on international duty, there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s taken its toll compared to teams playing once a week. Having said that, Barry and the team have reached the Scottish League Cup Final this weekend; our first final in five seasons. Between the Frankfurt game on Thursday, the Cup Final on Sunday and the next five league games, we will play seven times in 20 days.

“I believe there continues to be a strong and growing relationship between the Club and supporters. Yes, frustration over recent form is fully understandable. We have all been frustrated too. But those of us who witnessed the performance in the second half against Hearts, driven by the backing of the fans, with a special mention to the Red Shed who led the way, and the way the players celebrated the winning goal, demonstrates not only the love we all have for the Club, but also that the players are committed to the cause and that the dressing room is united behind Barry and the coaching staff.

“let’s all get behind Barry and the boys as we’ve a cup final to look forward to on Sunday. Thank you all for your support home and away.”

Chief Executive Alan Burrows, who during the meeting was officially appointed on to the board as a director, gave the following commercial update.

“I’ve completed nine full months now – in some ways it feels as if it has barely started, in others I have to remind myself that I haven’t been here for years!

“But from a personal point of view, I’ve loved working at Pittodrie, enjoyed leading the staff and have been really taken by the warm and hospitable welcome that has been afforded to my family and I by everyone in the City.

“A close friend in the game once remarked to me that, in professional football, everyone’s emotions are dictated to by results. That’s true, in many ways it’s the nature of the beast. Clearly, as the Chairman has already acknowledged in his remarks, our league form this season has to be better – everyone who is sitting at the top table tonight not only acknowledges that, but is fully committed to making it happen. Hopefully Saturday’s comeback win against Hearts is the catalyst for that to begin in earnest.

“However, I think it’s also important to spend a little time this evening talking and highlighting some of the hugely positive things I have found and experienced since arriving.

“Things that have given me a lot of encouragement about what is possible and what we can achieve. I am in the ‘fairly’ unique position where I have been in a senior role at two different clubs in the Scottish Premiership, as well as having sat on the SPFL Board and the Professional Game Board, so have a unique insight and comparison.

“Firstly, it might be easy to forget that this coming week, we face our final Europa Conference League Group stage game against Frankfurt, our first group stage campaign for fifteen years, and the League Cup Final at the weekend. We’re going there with the clear intention of lifting the trophy.

“We’ve come a long way in a short period.

“One of the key aspects to any successful football club is having a Board of Directors who are engaged and committed to the business itself, but to the plan and to the project. Not all clubs, in my experience, do enjoy that– but we are fortunate enough to have that in abundance. The strength of the Board collectively, and it’s individual Directors, is a huge plus for AFC. We also have an ownership group who have invested more than £20m since the beginning of their involvement, be it large CapEx projects like the training ground or various working capital injections over their time. By the time we come to the AGM next Christmas, we will be forecasting that we will have doubled turnover in the last decade.

“Another is having a plan that everyone buys into. The Chairman has already touched on the player trading model that we operate. Of all the traditional city clubs, no club has performed as well as Aberdeen in this area over the last few years. In our last three sets of annual accounts, our cumulative turnover is £40.5m, with £11.4m in player trading gains over and above.

“That means we’ve managed to generate the equivalent of 28% of our turnover in additional transfer fees.

“We are clearly all bought into this model, and we have assets under contract that give us significant confidence in what we’re doing. The club continues to speculate to accumulate, our operational losses demonstrate that acutely, and it isn’t a simple process. If it were, every professional club would do it. So, I need to ensure, as the most senior individual within our executive team, we are doing everything possible to grow our operational income.

“To that end, we can also take a lot of encouragement. We have increased our season ticket base by 27% on last season, and now sit on 11,000 regular season ticket holders, which gives us a great platform which to build on.

“Our key strategic objective between now and 2026 is to get that to 13,500 regular season ticket holders and the fact that the volume of Under 18s has increased by 43%, and the share has jumped from 18% to 25% despite the large increase in overall numbers, gives us cause for optimism for the longer term.

“I must thank our supporters who have backed the club so tremendously in my time at Aberdeen, both at home and on the road, in Scotland and abroad, where almost everywhere we go is a sell-out.

“Our DNA Junior initiative, launched in 2020, must be one of the best in the country. We have primary school children, from across Aberdeen City and Shire, involved in this completely free of charge programme designed to introduce them to AFC at a young age and allows them to sign for the Dons, as well as attend matches. We broke the ‘10,000 barrier’, one in every four primary school kids in the northeast, for the first time earlier in 2023 and our target is to increase this to 15,000 by 2026.

“Our club membership scheme has also been another brilliant project that I found when I arrived at the club. Established back in March 2018 to directly assist the football department and the youth academy, AberDNA generates a seven-figure gross return for the club on an annual basis. This was yet another record we managed to break just recently, with the current total now having moved above 6,800 members. We see no reason why this cannot be 7,500 by the end of 2024.

“Our retail side has flourished in recent years. We smashed all sorts of records with our replica kits. The department itself is one of the key drivers of revenue to AFC – and has expanded by 26% over the last four years. We think there is much more to come in the months and years ahead, with forecasts for this year showing that comparison growth to 2018/19 reaching as high as 38%.

“And our commercial department has gone from strength to strength over the last few years, even despite the challenges posed by the Covid19 pandemic. To that end, I would like to take time to acknowledge and thank Rob Wicks, our former Commercial Director, who led on this side of the business for five years before taking up the MD role at P&J Live last June.

“Thankfully, we had a ready-made replacement in Robbie Hedderman who has grasped his opportunity with both hands. Our commercial revenue for 2022-23 was £3.4m, and this year, having sold out all our hospitality boxes and lounges for the first time, we are forecasting this to edge over the £4m mark. Longer term, we want to drive that hard to £5m and beyond, and we continue to explore new and innovative ways to grow the club in that area.

“Can I take that time to thank all of our club partners and sponsors for their own-going support and shared vision.

“With our European campaign and our appearance in at least one Final this year, we are projecting our turnover to exceed £20m for the first time in Aberdeen’s history this year. Our second strategic target as a business is to ensure that we are hitting that level on a regular basis, and this season isn’t a one off.

“To do that, we need all the component parts to work in tandem. We need to continue to push and challenge ourselves to be the best version of Aberdeen FC we can be. We need to compete on the pitch, to challenge at the top end of the table, win trophies and play regularly in European group stage football. Off the pitch we need to grow our revenues to enhance the offering we provide, both in terms of player quality, but also the supporter experience. We need the buy in from everyone – our Directors, our shareholders, our supporters, our staff, our partners and sponsors – together, we can be incredibly strong not only for Aberdeen FC, but for Scottish Football.

“I have found a brilliant football club with so much going for it and so much already achieved. What excites me most is the potential and opportunities that lie ahead of us.”