FSF Cymru Meeting with FAW at Cardiff City Stadium, 10 Am. Friday November 20Th 2015

FSF Cymru meeting with FAW at Cardiff City stadium, 10 am. Friday November 20th 2015

Minutes

Present

Mark Evans, Rob Dowling, FAW, Wayne Nash, FAW security, Wayne Palmer South Wales police, Adam Gilliatt FAW stewards

Paul Corkrey, Vince Alm and Neil Dymock FSF Cymru Colin Lewis and Allyson Rees Welsh supporters

1. Cyprus and Bosnia away trips review
2. Andorra and Holland home games review
3. France 2016

• Ticket questions for Matthew Evans Ticketing & Membership Co-ordinator
• Security and consultation with FSF Cymru
• FSF Fan embassy
• Travel company Gulliver’s
• Friendly matches in advance of tournament

1. Programme update and any other news from Rob D
2. Merchandise to be deferred
3. Under 21 fixture planning
4. North Wales Issues
5. Next year’s membership and ticket prices for WC campaign
6. Gol
7. Any other business

Cyprus away

Over 3,000 fans made the trip and there were no incidents to report, everyone had a great time.

Bosnia Away

This was a difficult match due to the lack of tickets and the heavy handed Bosnian police operation but although the away section was overcrowded due to fans getting in with the wrong tickets, it generally went well. We had one incident when a Welsh fan rugby tackled a statue, knocking its head off which resulted in a fine but apart from that the Bosnian police praised the behaviour of our supporters.

Andorra Home

Full house at the stadium and a great celebration with no serious problems, there were delays after the match due to the volume of traffic though.

Holland Home

Over 25,000 attended the match and there were one or two minor incidents in the Canton stand during the game and problems with many fans arriving late at the turnstiles, probably due to the wet weather.

France 2016

Tickets

Many questions have been sent in from fans regarding ticket queries for Euro 16 in France. We sent the questions out in advance to Matthew Evans who made every effort to answer them but truthfully said that all the answers are not known yet and rather than confuse things asked us to defer the questions until after he attends a UEFA ticketing workshop next week which should give us a lot more information. We happily agreed to wait until we get accurate information and will meet Matthew in the near future.

We did emphasise at the meeting the importance of the loyalty scheme and the use of it when the FAW send out the unique access numbers to members.If you are a registered member of the official Wales fan club, you will receive an access code from the FAW to enter the portal and apply for tickets. Please note that this access code is unique and non-transferable. It will be valid for only one ticketing account. It is also important that the FAW keep to their current policy of one ticket per member and not allow members to buy extra tickets for possible non-members.

We know that the first stage of tickets to the general public have been subscribed by over 13 million fans throughout Europe for the 51 games. From December 14 th tickets will be on sale for the 16% allocation to Welsh fans only and this is when the access numbers and loyalty attached to them will be very important. You will be able to apply for tickets from December 2015 to January 2016. For all valid applications received within this period, fans will be notified with the outcome of their application by February 2016. It makes no difference whether you apply earlier or later during the sales period. Every valid application received during the sales phase has the same chance of being successful.

Security and consultation with FSF Cymru

This topic became more real following the tragic events in Paris and some fans had expressed concerns about attending the tournament, especially those planning to take families. FSF Cymru had already been in touch with the Home office and south Wales police who both had the same message. The general public should be vigilant but continue to go about their daily routines, if you hear or see anything suspicious report it to the police. Every single precaution and safety procedure will be examined and implemented during the months leading up to the tournament to protect the fans and visitors in France. Nobody can guarantee that a lunatic won’t try to cause tragedy but everything possible will be done to prevent it happening, but each fan and family must make the decision individually. FSF Cymru will keep everyone updated with any Police or security updates before and during the tournament and everyone should always read the government website before making any trips abroad.

FSF Cymru Fan Embassy

The fan Embassy service is reliant on funding and that is being addressed, the FAW and police will support our grant application with the Home office. for a tournament more staff will be recruited, training will be needed and many planning meetings held.

The FAW offered to take some of the FE team on a short Host City visit once the three cities are known next month, this will probably be in January and will allow for reconnaissance and getting to know and meet the relevant people in those cities, that will be very helpful to us. On the 2nd and 3rd of March, the French Football Federation and UEFA are hosting a meeting in Paris bringing together security officers and ticketing/hospitality dept. from all of the 24th teams qualified for the EURO. We were formally invited to attend it and present the Fans’ Embassy project which we will do.

We offered to do a EURO 16 presentation in both North and South Wales probably in March, alongside the FAW and police and security where fans can attend and ask any questions they want to about the tournament, by then we hope to have all the answers whereas now everything is sketchy to say the least. We will also be attending regular meetings with the FAW and compiling updates on our web site leading up to the tournament.

Travel Company

The FAW has agreed a three-year partnership with the UK’s leading sports tour operator, Gulliver’s Sport Travel, which will include travel for Welsh fans planning to go to next summer’s finals in France. There are also other companies including Wonky sheep offering trips and whilst we welcome the more options available for fans we were especially happy to hear that no travel company can guarantee tickets, it’s against UEFA rules anyway.

Friendly matches in advance of Tournament.

There are likely to be two with no opponents yet confirmed, one in March at home and one at the end of May probably away, which might also be a training camp as well.

Match Programme

There have been complaints about the difficulty to obtain the programmes on match day and this needs to be addressed by the FAW by getting more sellers and getting them at the stadium earlier. Fans are also not happy about the size of the programme and prefer the smaller sized versions used at club games. In response the FAW admitted many programmes were not sold again and that the programmes are actually losing money, (which is a marketing issue FSF will bring up at a later date), There is even some talk of not producing one at all at future games but nothing is yet decided and a review will take place. Fans wishing to purchase the Holland programme can get them at the reception of the FAW.

Merchandise

This is another topic many fans are concerned about and we have lots of correspondence about the subject. Ian Davis, head of Department contacted us and offered to meet us with ticket officers to have a meeting solely about Tickets and Marketing. We agreed to this but it needs to be soon, there is a great deal of interest in the National team now and everyone needs to up to new levels.

Under 21 planning

We received quite a few queries about the Under 21 team but this e mail summed up most of them

“The Under 21 matches this time round was very poorly scheduled in my opinion. Tomorrow's game is at 2pm in Bangor, which means that everyone who is going to the senior team's game will miss out, and a lot of people who aren't going to that game will presumably have reasons like not being able to get off work in time, which means that the 2pm timing is no good for them either, and a lot of young people will be at school/college/Uni. The one in Wrexham on Tuesday is at 6pm, which is slightly better but for a lot of people who have to be in work until 5 it causes problems. If it could be at 6pm then why not 7pm? Would still finish early enough for people to get home afterwards which ever mode of transport they use.
Maybe the FAW have no control over it, but even so it would be good if they could feedback to UEFA or whoever, or if they could provide an explanation regarding how the times/dates are chosen etc. Feel a bit sorry for the u21s really, who are doing so well so far this campaign but will have much less support than they could be getting for these fixtures. Now is the time to raise the profile of every age group we have.”

Mark Evans agrees that it would be great to have more supporters attending these games and explained about some of the reasoning. The floodlights at Bangor are not up to standard for UEFA matches and the FAW are looking to invest in improvements there and at Haverfordwest, that was why the game kicked off at 2 pm. The UEFA rules for under 21 matches state that games must start at 5.45 British time for that round of fixtures but they allowed an extra 15 minutes.

North Wales Issues

The two main enquiries were about

• Holland game on a Friday night
• Possible first team training camp in North Wales

Holland game

We were asked to raise the following points

The They should have prioritised a Saturday fixture as a gesture of good will for those travelling from the North and people who wanted to take children to the match.
If Holland couldn't/wouldn't do Saturday then the FAW should have walked away and got someone else to play.
Can they reassure fans from the North and outside the M4 corridor that they are doing everything they can to ensure friendly fixtures that fall on weekends will be held on Saturdays (or Sunday) rather than Friday nights?

The FAW replied that it is very difficult to get quality opponents for Friendlies and very expensive if you want the very top teams, they do however recognise the difficulties of travel for many fans and appreciate the efforts made to get to Cardiff on a week night. The FAW want to maximise the support and opportunities for as many fans to attend games as possible and don’t arrange games to hinder that, it’s just circumstances and the problem of finding attractive opponents.we couldn't play the Netherlands match on the Saturday or Sunday as they were reserved by UEFA for TV coverage of the EQ play off matches. Friday was the next best option

Training camp

We were asked to raise this;

“Could you ask if it would be possible for the team to set up a training camp in North Wales before any possible home friendlies in the spring. Even if the game is still due to be played in Cardiff they could use the racecourse for an open training session and give the kids of the North a chance to see and meet the squad. A flight back down to Cardiff from Hawarden would only take 45 mins.”

The FAW explained that the players are not around for long during these periods but would mention this idea to Chris Coleman, they agreed that this would benefit North Wales supporters and give people a chance to see the players.

Next year’s membership and ticket prices for WC campaign

Although we have a separate meeting with the ticket manager in the next few weeks we once again emphasised the need to carefully look at the pricing structure for next campaign membership and match ticket prices. Tournament ticket sales should be priced to maximise sales but match day walk up prices must also be realistic, apart from Ireland there is no attractive opponents in our group and that should be reflected in the pricings. We also believe that the membership data that the FAW get is more important that the actual money they charge if the marketing department used it better. We want to have even more members than the current 13,000 next campaign and pricing would be critical to that.

Gol

Neil Dymock explained that lots were going on and that he was improving the website and updating things. Many good causes and charities benefitted during the last campaign thanks to the generous contributions of the Welsh fans, mainly at away games and over £6,000 was raised on the Cyprus trip that will be put to good use. They also had a very successful drive to Bosnia which was manned by Kevin Davies, Tim Hartley and David Collins that made charity visits throughout the trip and donated their actual trip vehicle to a Serbian good cause.

Meeting Closed 11.30