“ Cardiff City Fans Parliament “

I was lucky enough to attend the fans parliament yesterday and thought I’d provide some info to those unable to attend. I’ve added the info below and tried to stay impartial of my views.

There were roughly 50-60 supporters at the event, including members of the FAB, Trust and Supporters Club. The club advised they’d narrowed it down to 100 from a large number of applications, so slightly disappointing that a number chose not to attend.

The Fans parliament was explained to be a yearly event and give a wider range of supporters access to the club. All the heads of dept attended, alongside Ken Choo and Mehmet Dalman. BBM also made an appearance. The event lasted 2hrs and was broken up as an hour and 20 presentation from the club departments, followed by a 30 minute Q&A after a short interval.

The heads of department included Media, Comms, Safeguarding, Fan engagement, ticketing, retail, the women’s team, Operations and the academy. It felt as though the club had really been hit by the relegation, as you’d hope and there is a significant amount of work going on in the background. Personally it felt invigorated after a long period of instability.

Personal highlights from the presentation were an impressive talk from Gavin Chestefield on the academy, covering off a number of statistics from the EFL showing the good number of academy graduates in the first team squad over the last 12 months. He also covered off the processes behind the scenes that they’re using to elevate and develop the younger players, how they push international football, the good support they get from the board to enter international tournaments and how they’ve created a really good support network for the kids to keep them onboard.

Retail also covered off the processes behind for kit creation, they announced we’ll be moving on from New Balance next season with a new supplier on route, no further info was provided. There is a new retro range of kits due in the next month or so.

Ticketing wise, the club are aware of the gaps in the family stand and working with schools to try and fill the gaps. The reasoning was kids were much keener to get into areas like the canton for the atmosphere.

Wayne Nash covered off the incident at Exeter and advised we had submitted a note to the EFL. Whilst offensive to the GK, it was incorrectly deemed discriminatory and the EFL had confirmed the ref made a mistake with tannoy announcements.

Comms at the club is difficult, it looks like cut backs mean they have a considerable amount of work to do and not enough people to do it.

Onto the Q&A

Quite a few questions asked but only 1 really per person. The main questions, probably of interest were:

Should the academy push for Cat 1 or is Cat 2 sufficient.

Gavin Chesterfield confirmed there is very little difference between the 2 aside from 1 has a much higher cost, significant millions a year. We’re in a lucky position in that we come under the FAW, this makes talent poaching more difficult for the prem academies. Players can’t leave before 16 if they live in Wales. He was also pressed on whether we could lose some of the brighter talent coming through. As with anything the club will trade when they need to, but they’re committed to keeping the best players and watching them grow. The pathway under BBM is clearer and has given a real buzz down there.

Who runs the club day to day with the CEO having numerous roles and responsibilities?

Ken confirmed he still commits significant time to the club and has regular contact during his day. He attends all major meetings and events. When he isn’t around, the Finance manager oversees the club, as he’s apparently done for a decade.

Should the club leverage the the link between us and KV Kortrijk more?

Ken again answered this and advised stabilising us in L1 was more important. They’ll look at it again next year, with Gavin Chesterfield confirming it had had great benefit for Isaac Davies.

When will we next see the owner? Can’t he at least do a video interview?

He is aiming to be over very soon - it was said with a smile so one of the next home games you’d anticipate.

Lastly someone asked BBM about signings. They felt we’d been bullied in a few games and needed some extra physicality at the back. BBM reiterated his commitment to playing the academy players and helping them grow as they’d be a greater asset. We might lose some on the way, but it will improve us long term.

The night ended there, I guess they got lucky it wasn’t tonight as the mood might’ve been a little different, but overall, it feels like the club are listening and realise they need to do more.

Thank you Rhys much appreciated

Thanks for that sir.

Thank you very much for posting, it is appreciated by us moderators and the wider members I assume.

I'm interested to see who the kit supplier will be next season. Sad to see New Balance go because they're stuff has been good quality.

As for Tan attending a game, I'm not sure he'd be well received by our fans. But I did notice that BBM said on Thursday that he hopes to see Tan at a game soon.

Thanks for the update.

Interesting that communication was spoken about. I was one of those fans who were invited, however, did not attend.

I like others was sent an original communication a couple of weeks ago promoting the Fans Parliament, asking for applicants to apply, as I did.

It wasn't until Tuesday did I recieve a email to say Id been succesful in my application, unfortunately by then I had made plans.

Thanks for the update

Interesting comment regarding the incident at Exeter where they said the EFL said the ref had made an error in making an announcement about discriminatory comments made to their keeper. Stopping the game like that and I believe a 2nd announcement was made a bit later made the City fans look in a particularly bad light. Yes it's not a nice chant to aim at an opposing player, especially as there is no evidence of him being a paedo but it does make to outsiders a very bad impression of City fans that we have long distanced ourselves from.