The Dons Trust, AFC Wimbledon’s owners, look to raise £5 million in loans from fans and investors for new stadium through new Plough Lane Bond
ESA member Cake, the sport & entertainment agency of Havas, is supporting The Dons Trust, the fan-run ownership body of AFC Wimbledon, through an earned comms approach, generating mass PR coverage for the launch of The Plough Lane Bond.
The club has received exposure across national print and online titles such as The Daily Telegraph, The Sun and Daily Express. Key spokespeople from the club and the Dons Trust were also interviewed by broadcasters BBC London TV & Radio, Sky Sports and TalkSPORT.
AFC Wimbledon is one of the world’s most famous fans-owned football clubs and has become an exemplar for fan-ownership and phoenix club revivals in the UK and abroad. The Dons Trust is calling on investors and football fans from across the UK to sign up for a new bond scheme that will help fund the completion of one of British football’s greatest fairytales.
The Plough Land Bond offers annual returns of up to 4% and the Trust is looking to raise between £5m to £11m with an initial deadline of 14 February. Minimum investment starts from £1k with loans running for five, ten and twenty-year terms*.
The loans will be a vital contribution to the final stage of funding for the construction of a new stadium for AFC Wimbledon back on Plough Lane, just next door to where the original club played until 1991.
Getting the stadium built and opened by September 2020 will represent the final chapter in the club’s extraordinary rebirth. The fans were unhappy with the owners’ decision to move their club 60 miles away to Milton Keynes in 2002 and chose to start again at the lowest level of English football. The club has since made incredible progress and after six promotions are currently playing in League One.
Damian Woodward, one of the creators of the Bond, supporter and Dons Trust member, said:
“We were on the £2million mark going into the media launch and by the end of the day we had surpassed £2.3 million thanks to the instant press coverage we received. We’re so grateful to Cake for providing us with their expertise on a pro bono basis, we wouldn’t have been able to attract this calibre of media on our own. We’ve got more press coverage expected to appear which will only help us as we aim to reach that magic number of £5 million”.
Rosie Holden, Managing Director of Cake, said:
“AFC Wimbledon is a unique football club that fans and media across the country want to see succeed, whether you follow them or not. We’re proud to have played our part in supporting one of football’s biggest community stories and can’t wait to see the club run onto the pitch of its spiritual home for the first time, in what will be an emotional moment for so many of our friends at the club”.
To find out more about The Plough Lane Bond, visit ploughlanebond.com
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