The full video of Tuesday’s meeting is now available on the Club’s Official Youtube Channel.
We are happy that the meeting took place and that it is available unedited for all to view. We appreciated that many of those invited to attend collaborated with us to try to co-ordinate the questions, and we hope that provides encouragement towards on-going unity between fans’ groups. We also appreciated that during the meeting CEO Katrien Meire acknowledged that dialogue with fans should be more regular and cover more 'strategic' issues. This is what we have been seeking for many months.
The format of this particular meeting was such that the strategic (fundamental) questions were mixed in with more typical questions of the type best dealt with in the Fans Forum. Future meetings need to separate these two types of issue, and we believe Ms Meire acknowledges that.
In particular, in order that all the groups wishing to speak were accommodated, we did not share the results of our most recent survey, conducted on the eve of the meeting. Whilst the survey reveals that dialogue remains one of fans’ top priorities for action, it also shows that 93% agree that fans should protest about the way the Club is being run. The sample size is robust and shows no appreciable difference between Trust and non-Trust members on the latter question. We seek to help the Club to recognise and understand this, based on our research, rather than on the size of protests outside the ground.
There is a lot to take in and consider arising from the meeting; the video was only released late on Wednesday evening. Many of the Trust board still need the time to go through the 110 minute video, as, we are sure, do many of our members. It's important to take advantage of the international break to review it and think carefully about our next steps. Please bear with us.