Fan Engagement Plan 2026/27: Working Together To Shape The Future

[Brizzle Fox]

It all feels rather North Korea. Fan engagement should be so easy to get right to get fans on board, so of course we massively over complicate it, throwing up ever more barriers between "us and them".

 

What are they scared of regarding any open dialogue?

 

A good example would be the idea of holding a F2F Fans Forum, attended by key representatives of the club giving their visions for the club (I suppose you need to have a vision in the first place though...), with a Q&A tagged on the end. As a club you could make this as open or controlled as you like, but would be such a PR win.

 

For instance from my own experience,  this is something that Bristol City did before the start of the season in a local bar / theatre.  Panel was the new manager, new Sporting Director and newish CEO plus senior member of playing staff (Jed Wallace).

 

Went down really well, got the club a lot of good will and got the fans enthused for the season ahead.

 

Ain't difficult.

 

 

[Philkeavo]

This whole fan engagement comms bs is so symptomatic of a club lacking leadership, direction and purpose. They might as well not bother if this is the level of corporate - word salad - nonsense they spew out.

 

How hard is it for the Director of Marketing & Non-Communications, Herihly to write in plain, simple English?Something like: “We know many Leicester City supporters have felt increasingly disconnected from the Club. We want to change that. Here is how you can speak to us, who will hear what you say, and how we will tell you what happens as a result.”

 

I can write it in 29 words, why can’t he?

[StanSP]

At what point can someone above the club see that this is not actually fit for purpose any more? 

 

Where can it go from here as the FAB Is proving to be absolutely fvcking useless on the club's behalf. 

 

What do other successful clubs do? How do they make theirs work? 

[CosbehFox]

Btw everyone the meeting minutes from the July meetings has yet to surface, we are approaching mid September. No person in those meetings gets to see a copy of the minutes beforehand. The minutes are also selected by the club rather than jointly agreed 

Edited 8 September by CosbehFox

[NextPlease]

6 minutes ago, CosbehFox said:

Btw everyone the meeting minutes from the July meetings has yet to surface, we are approaching mid September. No person in those meetings gets to see a copy of the minutes beforehand. The minutes are also selected by the club rather than jointly agreed 

Agreed the FCC minutes are incredibly late and this is the longest timescale since the FAB was set up (so any commitment of improvement in the 26/27 FEP just published has fallen at the first hurdle), they should be available within 4 weeks max (the vast majority of other clubs achieve this)

 

The chair of each working group within the FCC (so 3 of the 6 FAB fan reps) should be seeing the draft minutes ahead of publication with the ability to request any changes (if this hasn't happened yet, they will need good memories unless own notes were taken)

[TheLittleBigMan]

Lost me at "fan engagement". 

[TheLittleBigMan]

[SemperEadem]

The staff there really just believe it is a moaning minority.

[Freeman's Wharfer]

It’s a masterpiece of looking like you’re doing something good whilst actually setting up something that can be used as a shield and replace having to actually engage with fans in a meaningful way.

 

The people participating in it are being taken for fools (giving their time to this sham), the supporter groups are being controlled by it it (with everything being pushed into it and the club saying lots of things are out of scope so can’t be discussed) and the club are stringing everything out to the point that nothing gets done unless it suits them or they already wanted to do it (no record of suggestions made at the lowest level of the pyramid, minutes that read like a pat on the back for the club, everything strung out and delayed so nothing is ever relevant when released).

 

At this point, anyone who gives it any credibility is complicit in allowing the club to ignore the real issues and avoid making changes that could genuinely make fan experience better. And they’re often doing it because the club have seduced them with access (see Your 90 Minutes sessions being held in the changing rooms at the stadium or the FCC being given some early access to information) or made them feel more important than they actually are (FAB).

 

You have to admire the way the individual who created this has pulled it off really….

[Stadt]

43 minutes ago, Freeman's Wharfer said:

It’s a masterpiece of looking like you’re doing something good whilst actually setting up something that can be used as a shield and replace having to actually engage with fans in a meaningful way.

 

The people participating in it are being taken for fools (giving their time to this sham), the supporter groups are being controlled by it it (with everything being pushed into it and the club saying lots of things are out of scope so can’t be discussed) and the club are stringing everything out to the point that nothing gets done unless it suits them or they already wanted to do it (no record of suggestions made at the lowest level of the pyramid, minutes that read like a pat on the back for the club, everything strung out and delayed so nothing is ever relevant when released).

 

At this point, anyone who gives it any credibility is complicit in allowing the club to ignore the real issues and avoid making changes that could genuinely make fan experience better. And they’re often doing it because the club have seduced them with access (see Your 90 Minutes sessions being held in the changing rooms at the stadium or the FCC being given some early access to information) or made them feel more important than they actually are (FAB).

 

You have to admire the way the individual who created this has pulled it off really….

I don’t think it’s Machiavellian - it’s just how they work, slow, delusional, aloof. They don’t put enough effort in to elaborately tie fan engagement up so it’s just them getting round to things lazily.

 

There’s nobody driving anything day to day, just people happy to be there or part of the furniture. A proper, experienced ’football’ chief exec would go a long way. 

[Globalfox]

Have just been to another clubs Fan Engagement one of several I have attended. I had to pinch myself as all the structure, approach by the club even the complaints or requests were almost a copy of what I see at the Leicester meetings. It appears to me that at some of the long term non Pl/Championship real close engagement takes place because there is a close link due to small numbers. At the higher levels the larger fan sets (Everton excluded) due to scale are less unified so clubs don’t engage to the levels die hard supporters want.

[CosbehFox]

39 minutes ago, Globalfox said:

Have just been to another clubs Fan Engagement one of several I have attended. I had to pinch myself as all the structure, approach by the club even the complaints or requests were almost a copy of what I see at the Leicester meetings. It appears to me that at some of the long term non Pl/Championship real close engagement takes place because there is a close link due to small numbers. At the higher levels the larger fan sets (Everton excluded) due to scale are less unified so clubs don’t engage to the levels die hard supporters want.

Feedback we’ve seen as the Trust is that even the FSA are split on fan engagement structure. So subject to who you consult you’ll get a different approach. 
 

I tell you it’s a great eye opener going Sweden or Norway and see how it all integrates there. Helps they are still member clubs though 

 

Edited 11 September by CosbehFox