The 113th Aberdeen FC Annual General meeting took place at Pittodrie on Monday evening.

After the formal business was quickly concluded, Chairman Stewart Milne spoke to the media and RedTV:

ON THE FIELD

“Like the manager and players and the fans, when reflecting on Sunday I think for one reason or another the team did not do themselves justice. We know Celtic are a good side but we are capable of doing a lot better than we did at Hampden. You feel for the fans as it is a long journey down there and by all accounts a pretty horrendous journey back as well.

“If we play to our capability, we are a match for any team. Obviously, everyone realises this season that Celtic have taken a massive step forward. They have invested heavily in a new manager and have reinforced their squad. We have to do our best to keep as close to them as we possibly can. It is always going to be a massive challenge keeping in touch, their wage bill is a multiple of ours. We have just to work extremely hard to try and grow Derek’s budget as much as we can every year and then for the manager to make the best use of the resources available to him. And then to get the best out of these players as individuals and as a team. I think the manager has demonstrated over the last three or four years just how capable he and Tony are at doing that.

“Increasing the football budget is an ongoing thing. Everyone knows the economic climate has been fairly challenging up here the last two or three years and may remain the same for the next 18-24 months. We are very conscious that we are putting pressure on Derek to try and finish in the top three to qualify for Europe every year, to do well in the cup competitions so we have to make sure we are giving him as much money as we can to help him build as strong a squad as he can.

“We have to make sure we are building this club to be as strong as we possibly can and we have a team out there on the park who are hopefully in most games able to compete effectively and deliver the results that the fans are looking for.

“Getting to the final was more evidence of the progress Derek has made. The manager has reviewed the whole football operation and there are a lot of new people in place. He has brought a structure and organisation into the football side of the club that we have never had before. He has delivered results consistently over the past three and half years.”

OFF THE FIELD

The Chairman revealed that the cost of the Kingsford Project will be in the region of £50 million.

“The important thing is that we tackle it in manageable stages. The focus at the moment is not on the stadium, it is delivering the community and training facilities. We know that we are going to have to raise £10 million for that and we have to try and raise the bulk of these funds by the middle of next year as we believe the planning application will be in front of council next summer. We are hopeful we will get the right decision on that front but no one is taking anything for granted. We want to have sufficient funds lined up so when we get planning through we can commit to start delivering the first phase. That is number one priority over the next 12-18 months.

“Once we get that on the ground it gives us a great platform to then move on and start the fundraising for phase two.

“If you don’t believe you can raise the money there is no point in starting.

“We don’t have all the answers to how the money will be in place but we have been working on plans for some time now. We are looking at how we can pull support on board. If we can raise the first £10 million we know that the sale of Pittodrie will be a good start for raising the £40 million needed for the stadium. We will be holding a share issue and will be selling the naming rights for the stadium. There will also be various other elements and the reality is that if there is a funding gap, the club will need to take on board a long-term mortgage on the stadium.

“As for the stadium plans, what we have done at this stage, we have not gone into all the details, such as if there would be a safe standing area. We have developed it so that we will have a capacity of around 20,000. We will have a stadium with all the corporate facilities we need and a stadium with the facilities the fans need inside and out in the fanzone. When we come down to developing the detail, and we won’t be doing that for a few years yet, we will have had the feedback from some of the other clubs (such as Celtic) who will have been trialling safe standing. We would like to think by the time we finalise the plans for the stadium we will incorporate a standing area in it.

“I think a lot of people who had concerns initially are now supporting the move to Kingsford. The last poll was organised by one of the fans groups and something like 75% were in favour of the move and behind us. There will always be an element out there who will oppose it, whether it is the stadium or some other project. I don’t think all the answers to the arguments we put on the table will satisfy these people because they have made up their minds. And people have the right to do that. The genuine people who have real concerns, we have spent a lot of time with them over recent months and we will continue to spend time with them to try and demonstrate we are going to come up with solutions within the areas they have concerns on. We have won a lot of people round by doing that in recent months and hopefully by the time we come to building the stadium we will have convinced most people.

“I think from the evidence to date, and from the public statements made by some of the councillors, they recognise the importance of Aberdeen Football Club to the city. The councillors recognise we have real issues with Pittodrie. They recognise the fact we have don’t have proper training facilities. They see the importance of that in keeping a top management team and top players at the club. I would like to believe the will of the people in the city is behind this project. But we have to wait until it has gone through the full planning process.”

“I think from the evidence to date, and from the public statements made by some of the councillors, they recognise the importance of Aberdeen Football Club to the city. The councillors recognise we have real issues with Pittodrie. They recognise the fact we have don’t have proper training facilities. They see the importance of that in keeping a top management team and top players at the club. I would like to believe the will of the people in the city is behind this project. But we have to wait until it has gone through the full planning process.”