Coronavirus Update: Clarification regarding fees

Wednesday 1st April 2020

On 19 March Royal Wootton Bassett Town chairman Andy Walduck wrote to all members urging them to continue to support the club by not stopping any monthly fees at this time.

This recommendation was made in order to secure the future of both the football club and Royal Wootton Bassett Sports Association.

The club would like to further clarify the position it is taking to protect both Football Club and Sports Association. Above all, this decision was made due to the ongoing costs – specifically £47,550 – the football club will incur in the coming weeks and months.

These costs are incurred over a twelve-month period and include, though are not limited to, the following:

Fixed ground rent

The club has a fixed ground rent of £46,200 per annum, payable to the Sports Association. Failure of Sports Association member clubs to continue their ground rent payments will possibly lead to the failure of the Sports Association as a business, and the potential full closure of the Gerard Buxton Sports Ground site.

Insurance

The club's insurance currently costs £1,050 each year. Despite the fact games are not currently taking place, insurance payments to the club's insurer do not stop.

Registration fees for next season

Soon the club will be in a position where registration and affiliation fees are due for next season. The cost to affiliate all teams with the Wiltshire County FA is £300 per year, while there is also additional cost to enter certain teams into cup competitions.

Training fees

We remind members – in particular, parents whose children are new to the club this season – that that training fees are set by aggregating all costs incurred for the actual playing season, which for youth teams runs for eight months from September to May. To ease the financial burden on parents, these costs are spread over a 12-month period and not just the playing season.

As mentioned in the chairman's letter, we are open to the fact that some families' incomes will be negatively impacted, for example as local businesses close. If you are unfortunate enough to be impacted in this way, please speak with your team's coach before taking any action.

If you decide to stop payments without relaying this to the club, then the club will feel it has no choice but to de-register the player(s) and we will not be able to guarantee they can play once football resumes.

However, given the above, we urge all to continue to directly support the football club – and thus indirectly support the Sports Association. These are unique and difficult times for all.

But by staying together as one big team, we can survive and look forward to the day when we can resume sporting activities.

As a thank you for your loyalty, we will endeavour to resume activities at the earliest opportunity. Assuming it is possible, we hope to continue with training sessions and step up our community football offering in the summer months when there is usually a break. As part of this, we are considering running additional football camps over the summer period, again assuming it's possible and safe to do so.

Once we can resume sporting activities, we wish to kick off with a bang, which we very much hope we can do.

Please do therefore stick with us – and keep safe.

Last modified on Wednesday 1st April 2020 at 21:19.