A plan to turn STFC around after officially its worst season ever
Ink Sports Focus - Football writer Sam Morshead puts together a four-point plan to save Swindon Town
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After Town’s worst season ever - what can be done to turn the club around?
By STFC writer Sam Morshead
And it’s official. This is Swindon Town’s worst season of all time.
Defeat at Grimsby on Saturday means the club cannot overhaul the points haul of 58 registered by Ken Beamish’s squad of 1983/84. That year, Swindon finished 17th in the fourth tier. In 2024, 17th is the best the Robins can hope for.
Football comes with peaks and troughs, and most fans accept that inevitability. But for Swindon this is no mere trough. It is a gaping chasm.
So what can be done?
The Ink presents a four-point plan to turn things around as quickly as possible.
1 – Bring new money into the club
Over the past year, much has been made of the running costs accrued by Swindon Town. The accounts for the 2022/23 campaign put that figure at £8.2m, though that was considerably inflated by the flow of money from the Nigel Eady Fund to underwrite the cost of the County Ground purchase.
Take that away, however, and there are still around £7m of costs. Life is expensive for small and medium-sized businesses at the moment, and Swindon’s books show they are no exception.
Part of the social contract between owner and club is to look after the present to protect the future, and that means ensuring financial stability. There is evidence Clem Morfuni has been underwriting the club – just shy of £3m was owed to Axis Football Investments as of May 2023, while Trust STFC chair Neil Hutchings cited ongoing funding as a reason for the organisation’s contrasting treatment of Morfuni and Lee Power.
However, Morfuni is not the only person or entity owed cash by Swindon Town, and short-term debts are growing. The most recent accounts showed the balance due within a year to have risen nearly £500,000 in a year (a jump of around 15 per cent). There is no public breakdown of the nature of those debts, nor to whom they are due – and that’s understandable for a private business. But it cannot be healthy for the club for these to continue going up – and we do not yet know how much more that figure has grown in the 12 months since.
If, as it appears, cash flow is an issue – and The Ink is aware of several small creditors whose debts are overdue, while stories have emanated recently on social media of the club being slow to pay out its STFC Lottery winners – then it is incumbent on Morfuni to find additional investment. If that means selling equity, so be it.
The Ink is aware of at least two potential suitors for the club whose initial interest has been left unanswered for so long they have simply walked away. That does not mean that Morfuni (and those with a vested interest in the future ownership structure of the club) are not willing to contemplate selling.
It does not have to be a total buyout, either. Morfuni could consider offloading a stake in the business to generate cash – he has done it previously, when 22 per cent was sold to raise funds to satisfy a called-in debenture.
Summer is likely to be difficult, with season-ticket sales expected to drop. There is no matchday revenue in May and June, and only a modest amount in pre-season through July. While the two-day concert at the County Ground in late May could help plug a hole, it is unlikely to generate enough cash to wholly fill the void.
If Morfuni wants his stated mission for Swindon – “a sustainable Championship club” – to become reality, he first needs to ensure it has the stable base to try to get out of League Two.