Wrexham Football Club furlough staff – including players and coaching staff – to ‘safeguard its future’

The Board of Wrexham AFC have said the ongoing pandemic is ‘having a serious effect on the financial health of the Football Club’, and as a result they have taken a range of decisions to safeguard its future.

The Board say, “Combined with the indefinite suspension of the National League, and the uncertainty of how long this will continue, coronavirus is having a serious effect on the financial health of the Football Club.”

As a result of a recent announcement by the National League that the league has been ‘suspended indefinitely’ the club have made ‘important decisions’.

In a statement this afternoon the club say, “As well as providing reassurance for supporters, we have been making provision to save every penny we can by systematically shutting down the Racecourse and having a structured approach to cost reduction. However, there are only so many costs we can take out from that approach.”

“As a result, we have today communicated with all employees of the business – including the playing and coaching staff – to ask them to agree to move into the Government-organised Job Retention Scheme. The decision to furlough employees means we can pay them on an ongoing basis under the conditions announced by the Government.”

The club say there have been no redundancies, and all employees would remain employees of Wrexham AFC under the terms of their employment contracts.

The Board add, “This decision has not been taken lightly, and we need the understanding, sacrifice and co-operation of the employees of Wrexham AFC for the club to survive and move forwards.”

The statement also offers reassurance to fans, noting “We know that this announcement will cause worry and anxiety for employees, fans and WST Members but we want to assure people we will do all that we can to navigate the Club through this unprecedented time and we will only be able to do that as a collective together.”

“We also know that people will naturally start to ask what they can do to help as we know how much the club means to so many people. We will continue to communicate as best we can in the coming days/weeks to steer the club through this.”

You can read the full details here.