What’s Really Going On at Sunderland? | Supporters’ Meeting Breakdown

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2:01It's Gav and we are here today at chat about some off-field stuff. It's been quite a hot topic over the international break. We've chat a lot about it on this podcast because given us a little bit of time to reflect on things. And whilst the international break is being going on, the Southern DFC supporters collective have met to chat with the club about all of these issues. And the minutes of those meeting of that meeting, in fact, have been released. Lots to dissect off the back of it. So we thought we'd get together at a chat a little about some of the topics in there. And join me once again today is Andrew. Hello, Mayor. Morning, Mara. Nice to see you again. Yes, yes. We're recording this bright and early, mate on a Saturday morning. So this probably won't go out till Monday. But just so the listeners know, we are so committed. We came off that livestream last night. We'll back up again this morning with just nonstop, isn't it? I mean, we keep seeing this now at the top, but the Sunland just keeps on giving. It does.

3:01You know, I'm worried that when we go through that mega period of like a game every two or three days, we'll probably end up having to do two puns a day. So with all the stuff that's happening. So yeah, it's never a dull moment at Sunland. Put it that way. Yeah. Yes, people, this might be wondering why we're doing this, but well, I ask myself that question every day, in fact. But specifically this, specifically this topic around the supporters collective minutes, because this, I mean, the club, they are mandated by the Premier League to do this. It's something that they have to commit to. They have to meet with fan groups to discuss, to discuss, support issues. But this is something which the club established before this regime. I think it was 2017 when around the time the Red and White Army was formed, along with other support groups out at the BLC, the senior supporters association, I think, in the past you had the SLG who were the support of the years on group, I think.

4:03Also, as of this year, as of last year, there are elected members as well who represent the fan base and were elected by fans. One of which this year is our very own Michael Dunn. So, Michael's now attending these meetings. He was put forward as a candidate over the summer and was voted in there. Yeah, he's now part of the collective. But I guess the point of this is it gives support groups a direct line to the club. It has people like Tom Burwell, like Chris Waters, like occasionally Foreign Gassoffi, I think attends these meetings. I don't know if Keral's ever attended one, maybe once, I'm not too sure. But regardless, senior figures at the football club sit around a table with support as and the thrash it out and talk about things which are either problems and need sort and immediately as we're getting to soon with some of these issues. And generally just the club kind of champion things at the doing well.

5:05And obviously when the minister agreed upon there, then released and then the likes of us can can pour over them. So rather than go through it line by line, we're not going to do that, but we're going to pick out some of the things which we think are really important. And anybody who's watching this either on Spotify or YouTube, we will sling these up on the screen right now so you can play along and you can say what we're saying. But yes, these are the minutes which were published in attendance. I mean, some of the big names on that list. We've got Tom Burwell, Paul Kingsmore, who I think is in a transition period of leaving the football club now. I think he might have actually even left the football club, but was at this meeting Steve Wood, who's the head of safety, I believe Chris Waters. George Rusev, who is the head of the ticket office, somebody who's obviously been under fire a little recently with some of the issues there. Terry Stephenson I think is the new head of marketing at the club who came in over the summer. And there are a couple of other names there. No, the names Rob Mason obviously club historian was in attendance and Subod Murray,

6:06who I don't think has ever been that any of these meetings, but yeah. I was surprised that that one, Gava, I wasn't expecting to see Subod Murray's name on there. Yeah, maybe he was just sitting take it all in before, before maybe launching it. I'll later get because he doesn't seem to have had any certainly in the minutes anyways. He doesn't look like he had any real input in the meeting, but yeah. And also on there are the elected fan reps I mentioned before, our very own Michael. He was there Daniel Stokele who I believe heads up this is we aside. So they're obviously very prominent within the fan base. I've got the branch liaison council Jim Gillin, Catherine Duan from the from the BLC who obviously we've had on the podcast in the past. Andrew and Jane and Ian from the Red and White Army, Lynn from the senior supporters group and Neil Stokele from the disabled supporters association. Real mix broad span of the fan base there, great that we actually have support of reps on the panel there now because ultimately Andrew, the point of these meetings are

7:06is to try and improve support or experience, right? I mean, that's all we want. If there's any problems, let's get it out. People around the table, let's talk about it. Let's get these things sorted. Yeah, exactly. I know what you're saying Gavin that these are mandated and these have to be done, but the club could probably if they were just going to pay lip service to it, send out the, you know, I don't want to be rude by this, send out the minions, but wish I hadn't said that. But you know what I mean? No, it's a fair comment. I think it's happened in the past. Yeah. When the maybe didn't, maybe it's a sign you're not really taking the meeting seriously if important figures aren't in attendance, isn't it? So, you know, the fact Tom Burwell was there, shows that they're at, you know, it is pretty important to them. Yeah, exactly. Those are big hitters, like you say, the heads of department, the people with influence and the ability to make changes if necessary.

8:12So, I think that's good. As you say, it's really good that there's a proper spread of support is there. There's a couple of people in there who are quite happy when necessary to say uncomfortable things. Again, it isn't like they've just invited a few people off the street, given them a bit of a finger buffy and a few free drinks and just, you know, had people say, oh yeah, everything's fantastic at the club. So, I think for them to be worthwhile, you've got to get the right people in the meetings. And I think it's important to note that these things aren't just slanging matches. I think it's fair that the club point out the good things. As you'll come to it, the fans, the fans are more than happy to recognise the good things. So, this isn't just an opportunity to have a dig. I think this is a genuine opportunity for for good and bad things to be discussed.

9:12And not even problems, I dare say, in these meetings, the club will appreciate being able to just gauge fan opinion on certain things. So, there's definitely a place for these meetings and this one in particular, like you say, I think there's a lot of focus on it, given some of the recent troubles, supporters have had. Yeah, and obviously it seems that the meeting started with Tom Burwell, given a statement just looking back on the period that we've been through there, you know, really busy summer for the club off and on the pitch. Obviously, one thing I should stress here, by the way, these aren't exact courts of what was said, these are minutes from a meeting. So, you have to kind of keep that in mind, you know, it's not exactly what every person said at that stage of the meeting, but, you know, Burwell, they're very happy with the way things are going. Talk about the preseason to our being a success, which it was, the kit launch in New York, a difficult demand and transfer window, which they were pretty happy with.

10:14And that Burwell, the board and the, in the, the owner, are committed to keeping the club competitive off the pitch in order to compete on it. Following that, Andrew heard from the Red and White Army, read out a statement, which I think we, this is quite significant and important because, as Andrew points out here, the last time they had to do this was after the whole Black Cats debacle, which was a, you know, it was an embarrassment for the football club. And the, the, the, the significance is that we're doing this because it feels necessary to point out just how frustrated fans are about certain things. I mean, there's a big old ready to go thread off the back of this, these minutes coming out. And again, this, it highlights the, the issues people are having that it highlights the problems people are facing.

11:15Again, we've done a podcast last week with Dave Rose from the Red and White Army, where we went over these things. We went over these things quite a lot recently, because people are really pissed off with just communication, taking in particular, the membership stuff. And just to look at what Andrew said here, and, you know, we kind of read through this very quickly, but points out it's been a long time since I had to do this. But at the time, it was because things were remiss. And it brought the fall from the number of off-field issues that had gone on too long. The field that was being progressed. But, you know, after three years, I saw some things have dropped. And whilst we've had a good summer, and whilst we've had a good end of the season, and this is an important line right here, he says, unfortunately, off-the-field issues, off-the-field activity, sorry, have proven once again to not be at the standard expected of a club of our stature and resources, which is, I think, fair enough, Andrew. I think we've all

12:16said this. We're in the Premier League now. We're in the Europa League. Some of the, some of the bits off the pitch don't feel befitting of a football club at that level. And I think it's important to say this. We all just want the best for the club. So when comms are poor, when stuff's incorrect on the website are in social media posts, or in communication around ticketing or events and things, and it's wrong, annoys people in the chips away, and all these little issues, then the build up. And again, this is what happens, you know, the club, people feel like the club aren't necessarily listening or taking it seriously enough. So it's the job of those in attendance at these meetings to really display that anger and that frustration to those who need to hear it. Exactly. And I think that opening sentence from Andrew shows that the fans understand its edge of to do it, and that, yeah, that new castle game was a

13:18line in the sand. They haven't just brought that up for the sake of it. They've brought that up to say, look, we're not just here at the twist all the time. It is only when we think it's necessary to do it. And in a way, it's good that the team are winning on the pitch, whilst this is happening because the club will be able to say that this isn't just fans, you know, seeing them as a less, let's bash the management exercise. The fans are unhappy because the team are losing, so they're just now hitting out in every aspect of the club. These are genuine concerns that are impacting people. One of the phrases in that bit of the minutes that stands out to me is I think that either says once again or yet again, that adds to the frustration because this isn't the first time we've had these problems. So that makes it even more annoying. And cons are important.

14:26And we could maybe understand the odd type or the odd slip. We're all human, I'll make mistakes in that. But when some of the information coming out literally doesn't make sense or is too complicated to understand, people need to raise that and say, come on, this needs to be better. You see in things like there was a ballot, I can't remember which game it was for, but the dates of the ballot that they put in the press release, those dates had already passed. I think it was the torrents game. Yeah, so that isn't good enough because then people who want to go to that game aren't sure of what they're meant to do next. So I, it was right, I think, for Andrew to speak on behalf of

15:33fans and say, yeah, this isn't just winging for the sake of it. This is an aspect of the club which needs to improve quickly. Yeah. And obviously a lot of the issues covered in the statement are around the things we've discussed. So you know, the launch of the membership scheme, forcing people basically to alter accounts which cause problems because that wasn't a smooth process. As I was pointing out here, the examples of the system not working are too many to cover in this statement or indeed this meeting. However, things simply must improve. That's a big demand obviously, but it's true. It does have to improve because things, you know, demand for tickets are going to increase. If we go further in the Europa League, you're going to, you're going to, you know, you're going to have a short notice, you're going to have to arrange away games for the last ages of it. Or if we do well in the domestic cups, like all these things need to be communicated properly. This has been pointed out repeatedly. I think, you know, we don't want to read the word for word

16:37the statement, but I think this, this closing line here about fans and fan groups alike want to enjoy the significant progression of the club is making and the new experiences we are having. It's time for the off-field performance to match those of the unfield achievements. Now, in meetings like this, a presumed, you say something like that and you basically say at the club, you need to sort this out. You're given them to the next meeting really to prove that they've they've listened and it's minuteed and it's in, it's here for all to say that's been asked of them. Bow off all that up by saying, accepting that statement, accepting the statement, but as fans to consider the wider context, the impact of the clubs decline 10 years ago, including fall down the leagues and the more recent rise back up to the Premier League, cannot be underestimated. And the club recognizes that the pace of improvement has not been fast enough. Addressing some of these issues requires increased results and then recruiting talent in a highly competitive market. Some technical upgrades also had to come first, single sign on being the K1. It is now

17:38in place and can be extended to every fan engagement point. The process also allowed the club to cleanse its database. The rollout was not smooth, but it puts the club in a much stronger position to move forward effectively. Yeah, there's a bit of acceptance there that, you know, things aren't being good enough. But is it fair to just blame it on, you know, we haven't basically, we haven't got the recruitment yet, we haven't got the systems in place yet, we're still recovering from a 10 year exile from the Premier League. Is that fair necessarily to use that as an excuse? Because we're talking about things in the here and now, yeah, but like it's a lot of these problems to me, in my opinion, if you consult with fans more openly before you launch into decisions, you wouldn't hit these issues. It can't all be about talent and recruitment. I know with the something that I've winned about on the pod lords is this app that they teased and haven't yet

18:44launched and we'll get on to it. I think it's actually mentioned in a bit, but that app is still in development and what I believe is that it might be well, might well be due to some of the flat of copper, some of this stuff, but the club are actually going to use fans to help test the app, which is a great step forward, but stuff like the single sign on of account, which course, so I mean, we remember that day it was like 30 odd degrees heat and you had people queueing around the stadium, sweating the balls off like to get seen in the ticket office by a real person. Those are sort of things that could have been avoided with proper consultation and testing and things like that. Ticking in subgroups, I believe the club have a tickling subgroup or did have a tickling subgroup where they could discuss issues more roundly about tickling and stuff, like how much of they being consulted on some of this stuff. These are the sort of things that they have to, I think every single decision has to be taken carefully with fans in mind and you should lean on your,

19:48effectively your customers to help ensure that. It may sound in broad for these things, like don't just launch things without giving a thorough attention and maybe that's something that they're going to work on after this, but I don't know, I don't think it's fair to just say, well, you know, we're kind of playing catch up all the time. I don't think that's a solid excuse. It is an excuse to appoint, but it's not a good excuse for everything. That's how I say it. I think, yes, we do need to appreciate the position the club have been in in the last few years and that's created legacy problems. I think it is fair to point that out, but that only explains some of it for me and some of these issues don't appear to necessarily be because of lack of resources or what have you. Earlier on, one of the comments was, it's almost as if there's too many issues to list. I'm now struggling to think of exact examples,

20:55but there have certainly been things where it isn't a lack of resources. It's that an idea hasn't been explained properly or what have you or the communication around it's been a little bit muddled. For example, you're talking about that time when people will have an acute up outside the the ticket office in the really hot weather. If I remember rightly, during the peak of all of that, there was a day when the ticket office was closed. They shut on a Wednesday, I think, regardless. I don't want to have a pop in individuals. Those staff are perfectly entitled to time off. They work hard and particularly the people on the face to face roles will really earn in their wages at that point because, whilst it's not fun, queueing up for hours, it's also not fun for the

22:00people behind the desk who are working at high speed, they get through all of these problems. So I'm not criticizing people for taking time off, but given the situation at the time, could the club have perhaps changed things around so that the days off weren't all at the same time so that there was still some sort of presence at the ticket office to help work through all the number of inquiries. Little things like that don't happen. I don't help. I think the fact that the peak of all of this came just before the season as well. Could it not have been done a little bit sooner, a little bit earlier in the summer so that you weren't having to deal with those queries at the same time you were dealing with queries to do with tickets for upcoming matches?

23:02People were worried about getting into the game because that's why that's because the panic, because we were playing at home. Was it the Redden's game? Yes, that's right. And listen, there might be perfectly valid reasons why it had to be like that. And people from inside the club might be listening to him, well, he doesn't know what he's talking about because he's not aware of the restrictions we're working to. But at least tell us, at least say, we have to close on Wednesday for this reason or this has to take place now for whatever reason. I remember there was a period before where you had to, it might have been part of this single sign-in thing. I can't remember now. But everybody had to have individual email accounts. So previously, whereas all of the people in my network, my daughters and my

24:04nieces, their accounts were all just via my email address. I had to set up, in effect, burner accounts for them, particularly younger kids might not have email addresses yet. Now, that was a pain in the backside and I didn't fully understand why I had to do it. So just tell us, just tell us. There's a lot of people are getting on, happy about access and tickets and saying, oh, my day, I just turned up and put money on the desk in the give us a ticket, whereas now I have to register in advance. Well, my understanding of that is some of it is because of Premier League rules and the Premier League and the government want to know who is sat in every seat for presumably for safety purposes, although I dare say it's good for them to have a lot of people's personal data as well. But if it's because of a Premier League requirement, again, tell us and then you perhaps don't feel as annoyed that the club are constantly

25:10asking you to do things. So yeah, there's this context to it all, of course there is certain things could still be made a little bit more streamlined and explained a little bit better. Yeah. Catherine raised the issue around needing comms to be proofread. All right, at least run it by somebody so that funds feel at me, I sense that I might be at a point out where you need to add something or change something. Tom Burwell confirms systems will be stress tested, but proofreads will only be provided for significant projects, not day to day. The day to day is where they're getting it so wrong. That's like we, as you said before, like titles and wrong information and like, you know, I do when I spot stuff, I people send this stuff, I will send it onto the club and be like, this is wrong or you need to alter this. Happened literally the other days. I mentioned on the livestream on Friday with the Tourennes tickets. They still had old information on collecting your tickets as of the Wednesday or Thursday on the actual ticketing

26:11website. So whereas the club it comes out saying you don't have to pick tickets up in Portugal, we're going to send you as all digital tickets. It's said on the actual ticketing website that the club would be arranged in a collection point in Portugal and that's sat there till just a couple of days ago. They're the things that piss you off because it's like it's so it's so minor, but they build up this load of these little issues. Also on the app, Tom Burwell has said it will be the digital heart of communication, but it was mentioned in the summer and we've heard nothing else, like give some timelines to fans on when we can expect this, the benefits of it. I mentioned on a pod last week about the membership scheme, when me and you were at that meeting with Ian and James where there was basically one of these club meetings that we're reading about here, but we were also in attendance at it and they told us the memberships were coming and they told us all about the app and it all sounded great and theory and there's been no mention of this app publicly, nothing.

27:17Yeah, these things take time. We want it to importantly, as a theme of all this kind of tells us, we want it to work and it's got to be shit hot from day one, it's got to work, so that's why they need to test it out and I understand these things take time, but there's been no communication really on this app and it was presented to us as it's going to be one of the big selling points of the membership scheme being able to access everything through it and yeah, we still haven't really had any communication on that, but obviously, Burwell in the minutes talks globally about it and it's going to basically bring us forward into the 21st century and all that good stuff and he said it will be a communication tool in the way to engage effectively with fans, Tom Burwell confirmed, Ticklin will not be incorporated into the app this season, so you're still going to have to use something else to sort your tickets out, why that is we don't know

28:18once in a while, tickets will be available via the app but we'll also continue to be available to add in to our Google wallet. Now, the people who aren't in the digital age, the fans who still prefer to just have a physical ticket to take the games, probably at some point going to get left behind and these things come up at all, these meetings, catharines asked about, continuously for non-digital ticket users, the club confirmed there would be some support for them, but at some point they are going to get left behind and it's one of those things that will never go away and thankfully they don't get raised in these meetings and this is where some of the issues around comms were raised, the club has three members of communication staff by far the smallest team in the Premier League, which is that kind of explains why the comms are so poor, hopefully as a result of fan groups in these meetings, like some of ourselves on podcasts and

29:20website articles, hopefully they do escalate their process because it's obviously a massive, massive problem and yeah, sorry Andrew, if you were going to say something then, man. I was going to say yeah, that's not good, there's only three of them and again, I really hope people think I'm not just going in two footed on individuals because I wouldn't want to be a member of that comms team now getting a load of stick, you know, that can't be nice for them, but sometimes as well it's not necessarily the person writing up the information, it's the information that they've got to share, that's the issue, you know, that they're communicating a decision or a policy that fans that fans are going to have problems with, it just escalates those issues when there's then a type or a mistake. So, you know, it's not necessarily just those three

30:21poor souls writing up the deep ale, it's the deep ale being given to access and that just takes me back to something earlier about where Tom Burwell says, significant projects will be proofread, but not date-to-day things. I mean that, that to me sounds like VAR clear and obvious, and in terms of what's your definition of significant and what's your definition of clear and obvious because somebody to somebody significant might be getting tickets for the only game that sees and they're in the country or getting their kids first ever kit or whatever, to them that might be significant and it needs to be 100% accurate, whereas the club might not class is significant, I think that that's going to lead to confusion and in my mind it should be

31:26we try to aim to make everything accurate, whether it's their definition of significant, whether it's their definition of date-to-day. So, I do sympathise with the club and with certain people and I'm not necessarily saying I could do these jobs better, but certain things still there, it concerns me and this app concerns me because yeah it could solve a lot of these issues, it'll not solve all of them because as we've already been told it still won't include ticketing at the start, but you have to be honest, if you were to go and survey a lot of fans outside the stadium are you confident that this app will do what's said because of the recent track record gav, the learnt are going to have any real feeling until it's in place and until it's been working,

32:34that it's going to do the job and that's not a good place for the club to be in. Yeah, well there's been a build up of lots of small issues, that creates a bigger problem like you say, what might not seem like a significant problem to them may well be individual people in the lost trust when it comes to this sort of stuff, completely lost trust and he's said he had Tom Burwell, he said, you know, he's talked about the having the smallest comms team and the Premier League also says customer services are stretched. Well, what you're doing about it, are you going to bring more people in soon because these are like problems now, we need, if you need more people in customer services in the ticket office, in your comms team, yeah, I understand it's competitive out there, it's difficult to find the most talented people in all the rest of it, but we're a Premier League football club, let's start acting like it. And at least there's been some recognition that it's not good enough but I don't want excuses, I want actions, I want to say, I want to say those teams expanded and problems being solved and

33:38by the time this meeting next comes around, you know, they can say say we look what we've done, we've doubled the head count now our customer services team, we've brought in another two or three members of the comms team to help help out that department and we're seeing benefits immediately. That's what you want, that's what you, yeah, the important bit is do something about it and I support you look at the action box underneath all of this, where it says, in response to the Redmite Army statement and the concerns raised, suddenly I've said pledges to deliver monthly structured updates to the collective on all identified areas, ensuring transparency and accountability going forward. So this isn't just a meeting where we're saying, yeah, we'll look into it, yeah, we'll look into it, they're actually saying we will give you updates once a month on all of these problems, which I think is a real positive, if I'm honest, because ultimately the point these meetings should be to hold the club to account, that's it. Are you doing what you say you're going to do? Are you addressing the problems we'll bring to your tale? Otherwise,

34:38Dave Rose mentioned this when he was on the pod the other day, he said that there was a point in the past where the Redmite Army threatened to just pull out the meeting to all together, because like we're turning up, we're telling you the problems, we're coming the next time to do these meetings and nothing's happening. So that and itself where the club have committed to doing that is is a positive. Exactly, yeah, we don't want to be in a position where fan groups are so unheard that they're going to wander off because then you can't you can't do anything to help. And that's probably the biggest plus point for me from all of this, that Sunland do appear to have a genuine desire to listen and act. And if if everything's dealt with and we see monthly improvements, we'll all be over the moon and we can all move on and spend our time stressing about results on the pitch again. Yeah, some of the meetings stuff then as we carry on,

35:44retail sales continue to flourish with 35% increase on last year's sales already, which was a maze and hummel's been an absolute success for Sunland and certainly from a fan perspective, I don't know the numbers in terms of the finances and what have you, but as a fan, love it, like I'm sat here right now in the third training kit. Top, I love it. This was a present I got for my birthday, but I've got I've spent a bloody fortune in that in that in that club show. As I'm sure most people have it's just it's yeah, it's improved a hell of a lot. Before the season even kicks off, soccer fans are already making predictions. Who wins the league? Who qualifies for Europe and who's lifting the trophy at seasons end? On Kalshi America's number one prediction market platform, your trading against peers in a live market meaning there's no house and as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. For a limited time, download the Kalshi app and use code Cup26 to get $10 when you trade 10 KALSHI Kalshi trade the beautiful game. 18 plus only restrictions and eligibility

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37:49When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton for this day. Then comes the topic of shirt sponsorship. So, catching people up with the didn't already know it looked like we had one secure. It was supposedly lucrative deal with the Ghanaian government, I think. It was good to display a visit Ghana on the front of shirts. There were four of us of Kerala, Louis Dreyfus and I think David Bruce before he left. Visiting Ghana in Handelhova shirt. And then there were more photos of government officials holding this season sun and top with visit Ghana splashed along the front. It looked like it was all done. And I think Mark Douglas in the I news paper, he said that it was basically done. It was done. This deal was done. And then something happened, we don't know, in the minutes it says discussions with Ghana coming to an end regarding front of shirt sponsorship.

38:49The club has placed a value on the front of shirt sponsorship. And Tom Burwell is confident a deal will soon be secured at marked value and not below. Are you confident here in that Andrew that we are going to get something soon? Because then wrestling the clubs approach this, I've talked about with Adhud that other clubs in the Premier League had taken deals that were below marked value, essentially just to get something on the front of shirt, other clubs have offered front of shirt sponsorship. The sleeve sponsors are at the same rate, things like that. We've not obviously been content with that. We do have a sleeve sponsor, which is a cryptocurrency firm I think. And there is a mention of them further down the line to believe that for now. But are you confident that we're going to have something on the front of the shirt soon? Not especially. And this is a situation which I do have to give the club a bit of credit. Excuse me. Because I do think it's an extremely difficult market at the moment. There's not many

39:54organizations out there who are in a position to sponsor front of shirt for ball clubs. And it's even hard to find somebody because of the changes to the regulations. So there's been a few clubs this summer, perhaps all in the same area looking for a suitable sponsor. So there are certain things beyond the club's control. That interests me where it says discussions with Ghana are coming to an end because there was confusion as to whether we were dealing with the Ghanaian government or were we dealing with a separate organization that were it was never clear to me were visit Ghana or an official body of the government or were they just something set up by businessmen for example who were trying to promote their country. So the fact that it looks as if

40:58it was discussions with the government interests me. But it also worries me because I think there's valid concerns about certain actions from the Ghanaian government. And I think had we gone into a deal with the government that would have sent out an unpleasant message to a lot of fans. So I don't feel particularly good about that. With regards to my confidence something will be lined up soon. I'm not purely for the fact that these meeting minutes came from was it the 14th of September, or middle of the month. We're only hearing about them now two or three weeks down the line. And there's been no hints or obvious developments on that score yet. So I don't think anything's going to happen soon. That said I can appreciate the club wanting to protect

42:04its market value and not sell itself short. So it's a tricky one now. Yeah. Other tidbits there, Tom Burwell, I acknowledge the turnover of staff in senior positions in Fank Paul King's Morphries efforts, particularly with the collective. Yeah Paul King's more moving on after a year or two at the club. A new head of legal will be starting in October. So there's someone in a senior position coming in. The club is steadily building the staff infrastructure. Tom Burwell is still interim CEO with a mandate to obviously the transition from a championship club to a Premier League one. This was the big bit of information that jumped out of all of this from me that he is not considered permanent CEO of Sunday FC, which we've been trying to work out for a good while now because he did an interview with the sport business podcast where he was very much front and center. This is the job we're doing at Sunland. This is what we're going through over the summer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then in that interview said actually after I do

43:06this, I'm going to interview a potential CEO and I took that as thing, oh well this is progressing nicely. You know, we're going to get somebody in charge soon. And then in I think in some of the articles in the media over the summer and maybe even in some of the club comms, the stop referring to Tom Burwell as an interim. It was just say Sunday FC CEO Tom Burwell. So we just took that as, oh, he's kind of been transitioned into a permanent role. And that makes sense, I guess because he's, you know, if he's running the club effectively on Kerala's behalf, yeah, makes sense. This is the first time we've heard this again that he is still in the room CEO. I mean, first off, what do you think of that and what do you think it means? But too, as Andrew points out in the, Andrew heard in the, in the minutes there, do you think I could be causing those problems in recruiting sort of talented seniors at the football club? He's played it down

44:12there in the minutes, but I think that's a really good question. I put the one because it would like, you thought he might not be, he's quite possible. He could be moved on very quickly or someone else could come in and try and usher in a new era of leadership and change things. So like that might be presenting problems. He thinks it isn't, but yeah, what are you reckon on? It's, it's a really intriguing one. And I don't expect the club to update us every other day on that situation, but it might have been nice to get a little bit of a handle on why he was in a rim, they're not in a rim and now in a rim again. Yeah, just a little word on on what the situation is would, would help remove some of the doubt. But you see it with regards, the football side of things, a player might not sign if the manager's only got 12 months left and you don't know what's going to happen thereafter.

45:14So again, yeah, I think it will play a part in somebody's decision because as you say, you might really like the current hierarchy and think, I could see myself working alongside them. I think they're a good fit for me. It's a big risk though to commit yourself when those people might not be in down the line. I just think, I think that stands to reason. I feel a little bit for Tom Burwell because he does get a bit of flak online and a few people say he speaks in buzz words and all of this and he appears on podcasts and he shouldn't be on podcasts. You should be sorting this and this out. I feel a little bit when you're in that position, you have to talk like that now, you have to use business speak and what have you. It might not be nice for us to have to hear it and for have to accept that. But when you're the head of a large

46:21organisation, you do have to behave in a certain way. So I can get why he uses the phrases he uses. The brief time I met him, he seemed alright, the may as a person, he seems like a nice enough fella. I'm always going to be wary of somebody in that position because they do have responsibility and they could make decisions that impact the club. I don't think this helps him though. If this was me, personally, I'd want to know where I stood, I'd want to know, am I being entrusted with this project long term or am I just keeping things ticking along until somebody else comes along? I suspect he knows, if I'm honest. I suspect he already knows the other type of that. But I think the big one of the biggest problems he's got is he replaced someone who was very popular. David Bruce Effect, he did that job and was very popular with fans with people at the football

47:27club and he was a son and fan and he made decisions that were fan centric. Might not made him popular behind the scenes, we don't know, but you then replace him with a very corporate, you know, Burwell isn't David Bruce, he's probably more what you would expect in a big business to be running the show. I mean, like I said, there's a thread about the minute, the minute's on ready to go and some of the common themes when I come to Burwell, where people say that he deflects a lot, he gives corporate answers, only really associate himself with successes, Williams' historical issues, doesn't really provide concrete solutions to problems, you know, as I mentioned before, talks about resources rather than explaining what's actually being done. Like that's the impression people have of them whether that's fair or not. That's like from listening to one podcast and reading what responses are in the minute. And again, I've got to stress that these are minutes,

48:28they're not exactly what was said. But that seems to be not from everyone, but the kind of general consensus around people who have had one eye on Burwell. I don't think they're necessarily trust him yet. And that's fair enough because he's not been in the role very long. But it doesn't help him, you're right, it doesn't help him, that he's an interim, doesn't help the football club, if I'm honest, if he's just doing this job on an interim basis, I would be asking why, why are you in interim? In there it says something along the lines of, he's got the mandate that obviously the transition from a championship club, it was Premier League one, shouldn't that be a permanent CEO's job to do that? Why is he still in interim? Would heard murmurs of a potential sale of the football club? And this doesn't help, in my opinion. Yeah. You know, you're saying the clubs not for sale, Carol's very committed to the future of the football club. But the guy running the show day to day hasn't been given the role permanently. That would tell me that the club's still up for sale or is up for sale. I'm speculating here, but that's the manner runs the day to day. So why

49:34are we not going to permanency or it can't just be because there isn't the talent out there, because clearly, Burwell is seen as good enough to do the job. So why is he not permanent? These are the questions I've got from having seen that. Well, Gav, you're right to touch on the speculation, because there is speculation and speculation is allowed to grow and potentially become a distraction if there is a clear message in, like people of responsibility being in long-term positions. You said there that you suspect that Tom Burwell knows whether he's in a rim or not. If that's the case, why don't the rest of us know? Yeah. Yeah. It's all very well. I think it feeds into this whole, is the club for sale talk? Yeah, exactly. Because, because he just is he just interim until something happens on that front. People be wondering what I'm going on about, but there's been rumors over the last six months I saw that the club is on

50:37the market. And we've sported people in the media who've heard the same sort of murmurs behind the scenes and things. It's not going away. And Andrew heard in any of our asks if the interim, if the interim in the CEO position was causing challenges in recruiting talent, what do you think about it? If the clubs for sale, are they going to make expensive senior appointments at board level? Probably not. Yeah. That's what I mean. So the club aren't going to outwardly come out and say, yes, the club is for sale. That's just not something that we'll do. But you had, you know, there were rumors that Kerala kind of disconnected a little bit over the summer from the club, but then he he was front and center of the Fafana, daily flu to Leon to be there and try and convince the player to sign. There was not long after the transfer window, there was an article in the financial times where Burwell had spoken to them. And it said that Kerala was very committed to the future of the football club and investing. So that gave mixed messages because it wasn't

51:42tallying with this whole well is the club for sale or not. I and it may be a bit of politics, you know, speaking in an outlet like the financial times, do I'm potential bias to think actually, know, if you're not, if you're going to, you know, I don't know, I don't know, I'm just speculating here. I don't have anything concrete to go off. But all this does to me is makes me wonder about how committed they actually are behind the scenes because we should have a permanency or we should have a solid back behind the scene structure, senior figures, well-paid experts in each field. That should be a given, I think, a Premier League level. And the only reason that can come up with that you wouldn't make a permanency or appointment is because well the clubs for sale. I'm wrong if I won, but that's just my suspicion. Well, that's it. Yeah, people might know better, but it might be saying, oh, you're putting two and two together and getting five. But yeah, you're right based on what we know. It would make a bit of sense. And if you were selling a club,

52:49you've got more chance of getting a good price if the football teams are performing, then you would if the ticket office was performing. So, you know, if you could only put your attentions in one or two aspects with regards getting a good sale, they would be the aspects we have put the the attention on. You're right. We're speculating, but you can see why people might speculate and why people might worry. I personally don't think the club are actively being put up for sale. I personally think though that if the right person came along at this moment in time, it would be it would be considered extremely deeply and given proper thought. But again, that is just personal opinion, Gavin, we don't know. And regardless of all of that, in the meantime,

53:50there is a large organization with however many hundreds of thousands of supporters or customers as the club might call them. There is that large organization that needs to run smoothly on a day-to-day basis, whether it's going to be sold down the line or not. And that is the sticking point at the moment. And that is why we could do with a little bit more certainly on what Tom Burwell's future holds. Yeah, but it's a trusting again. The saying publicly in the likes of the financial times and interviews with the athletic and wherever else, Carol's committed to the future of the football club, Carol's committed to investing. But then do I trust what Tom Burwell says necessarily, not if I'm honest, no, I don't. That's not the say I don't think he's telling the truth. I'm saying I don't think he's been in position enough and gain that trust from us as fans yet. For maybe a little bit ago, I fully believe every word he says. And yeah, the fact that he's in

54:56the interim CEO doesn't really help matters on that record. Yeah, people listening might want to get in touch and let us know what they think, but I'm not. I've just got this feeling that we got that, you know, the clubs for sale still had just, I believe it. Is there a better time to sell really? Yeah, there's every chance that this pod doesn't go out because something breaks over the weekend and it's emergency pods everywhere you turn. So yeah, that could happen, but whether it does or not, like I say, in the meantime, certain things need to be looked at. And improved and I do think the fact that he's now being referred to as interim again and it's kind of been slipped in through the back door through these minutes. I think we could have done without this little bit of confusion at this point. Yeah, yeah. On comms, the club has committed to

55:59improving communication. Tom Bill once communication happened earlier with systems and plays and stress tested before for the role of fundamental changes that affect large numbers of fans will be tested by groups of fans before mass compliance that I think refers to the app. In particular, that's probably the next big one around the corner. It's from here. LG noted that fans are turning into message boards and social media for information because it is not readily available from the club. And again, that's a that's a feeling on their part that fans turn to fans because I think when you've got a problem, you want to speak to another human being, you don't want to speak to a chap bot on a website, you don't want to refer to an app, you just want to go to somebody. How do I fix this? And they go, yeah, this is how you do it. That's the easiest way to do anything, which is why rather than go through club channels, people will just ask other fans like how you do this. How do I do this? You know, and that's the misstep. The club need to be they need to be seen as the go to when it comes to fan problems and not people turning around. What do I do? You've seen it with these torrents tickets over the last few weeks where like the club haven't sold out their allocation

57:06for the game because thousands have just gone straight to rents. But I did it. I did it. You did it, Andrew. You know, lots of us have done it because I wanted to have me flights booked, I had me hotel booked, had me transfers booked. I didn't know if I had a ticket for the game. So, like, that's more for me mate and me family were coming. They weren't guaranteed a ticket from the club and it took so long for the comms to come out on that that a lot of fans just went to the easiest route, which was to buy direct from torrents. And again, it makes the club look daft because they're probably not going to be able to say we've sold out this allocation and they've got the whole confusion over who's kind of how many fans are actually going to be there. The club probably don't have track of that. You know, who's responsible for studying the fans at torrents of sold tickets to? All these questions are of arisen because the comms around torrents was poor. The emailed out ballot information,

58:07one, that was wrong, two, that they then had to go back on and a lot of the public communication on this has been that torrent haven't been necessarily easy to deal with, which is fine. But it just led the confusion and it led to anxiety and yeah, what's happened, happened. And it's again, it's just to me, it's just down to poor comms and unfortunately, you might not always be the club's fault, but keep in touch with fans. I think we got on the Q&A pod that we did. So I want to mention that the comms have been pretty sporadic with torrents tickets and that the club would have benefited from just even some daily content, a contact on where things are at, how things are going, how many tickets are available. People want that level of communication. Hopefully that's something they'll learn from off the bat at this, but it hasn't been great. No, you're right, it's not being good. And you mentioned the word anxiety there. This particular game is a perfect storm because it was our first away game in Europe in over 50 years and because everybody knew

59:13there was going to be potentially tens of thousands of tickets available because of who we're playing and where we're playing them. So there has been a desperation for information. People have been looking forward to this event for years and years. So yeah, the club might say, listen, we can't be holding your hand in giving you in, update every two hours. But I think in this instance, it could have done with just a bit more awareness of how the fans were feeling. And even if it was a message to say, we haven't got details yet, but we are in negotiations, we are trying to get as much as many of the facts as possible. At least you will then know that the club are working on it, rather than thinking, oh, is anything going to come out? Do I just have to spend for myself? Do I just have to get me on tickets? So I think the club have actually got a lot right around ticket

1:00:14in for Europe, particularly the home games. I think they could have potentially charged a lot more and people probably would have paid it because of the experience people want to have and they don't want to miss out. But away games in Europe are complicated at the best of times. So yeah, more, more detail would have been better. And Gavu, I think you've scrolled away from it now, but there was a point there about sales for Carrebel Cook games. There's another example of maybe the club don't fully appreciate what support is one, because in previous years, Carrebel Cook games, they cook games. People got annoyed because they only opened a couple of stands. I personally don't care about that as long as I can get into the game, I'm not too fuss.

1:01:16But a lot of people weren't very pleased with that. So it gives them the Jews this year, the club have started opening up the full lower ball, you know. But then of course, people saying, I've got that still not good because by the time I got to log in, somebody had already bought my normal seat. So here's the problem. Me dad had an, I was trying to help him out of this and I couldn't get around it. Me dad's seasoned ticket seat. He couldn't buy it because it was leaving a spare seat to the side of him. Yes, yes, he was getting frustrated and confused. Me dad's not the most tech savvy fella. So he was getting annoyed by it. Yeah. And then eventually managed to buy a different seat in the same role and then got an email saying that he's being refunded and he was like, I don't know what's going on. And that's where I get annoying for people. Yeah. But that even that, you can't buy your own seat because you're going to potentially, because you would be leaving the spare at the side of it. That's just stupid. That's the seat he sat in for 20 odd years. That's taking a late. That's his seat. It shouldn't just be easy enough from the log on. Pity seat,

1:02:19buy it, job done. And it wasn't. Again, Gav, there'll be plenty of people who do just want a single seat. Or maybe it might be that your dad knows the person who sits next to him anyway. And the only reason it's a single seat is the fella works shifts and has an ad chance to buy his seat yet. Again, it actually doesn't bother me whether I sit in my season ticket seat or not, but for some people it does. So it does for me like it does for me. I like it. But that's the thing that in the yeah, that you're right. The kind of listened in that regard that allowed us to buy because I was I was shouting for that over the summer just open up the lower balls so people can pick their seats rather than the minute we stand, they don't want to sit in. But what they should have been done though, if possible. And if the system is incapable of this, well, that's an issue to be taken up. What they should have been done is had some sort of reserve period where for five days or whatever

1:03:21season ticket holders had first dibs on their individual seats. Because yeah, that was the main reason people wanted the whole lower ball open in the first place. So they have listened and they have tried to calm fears on a certain thing. But what they've brought into place doesn't actually do the thing people wanted. Again, I might be people might be saying I'm picking hairs and being deliberately difficult. I don't mean to be. I just think that that could have been an easy win. Had they actually spoken to people and said, why do you want the lower ball open? What can we do to make this cook game more popular? Yeah. This is an interesting line 200 here. This one. You'll remember that there was a whole situation last season for Newcastle away where around I think it was either 55 to

1:04:2260 fans had the tickets cancelled for the game because they were caught up in some sort of debacle around ticket share. And that weren't necessarily the fault of the people who were who were actually then had the tickets removed. And those were completely innocent people. Who had trusted somebody to apply for their tickets had high liability points. We're going to the game completely legitimately have the tickets taken off them. It caused absolute hell on. This line I think refers to that because it says the club are continuing to contact fans and legitimately purchased tickets for Newcastle away and were affected by the cancellation of their tickets. I had heard that the club plan to do something follows people. So this tally's up with that. What that is I don't know. I imagine it. I think it's around the next game at St James's Park. Hopefully the club are going to ensure that those people get the tickets for the game or whatever it is. But yeah, I think I just

1:05:22thought I was worth noting because that was a big issue in the past. Hopefully the club followed through when that promise. Gav though, again, I'm really sorry if I'm coming across as being negative. How long ago was that game now? Six six months. Long ago it was December. Newcastle away. No, sorry it was but was it March? Oh, yeah, six seven months ago. Yeah, yeah. There might be reasons why they've not been able to contact everybody but to my mind, say for example, it is 75 fans. Unless those fans are deliberately avoiding the club, I can't see why it's taken that long to get getting touched with them all. I'd be furious if I was one of those fans in this instance. Yeah, I imagine a lot of them have took some of them will have turned their back on the club. The third period discussed of just being, when you made an example of the north out of their own, really, there's some other bit in here about stadium improvement that's going to be coming over

1:06:23the next three years, still there were only two years into that. And some problems around disabled supporters having problems accessing the stadium tickets in the website, changes have affected disabled fans, perhaps more than other fans. Many disabled fans could not attend the whole city game because they could not secure a part in space despite trying to contact the club by telephone of our ass SFC and the disabled community wants to be treated like every other fan. There have been improvements but there is more to do. And I remember seeing some of that for our area around disabled supporters because the level of contact isn't there, wasn't there? People just, I've made this point already but people don't want to stand in cues. But if they have to, the will to try and make sure that they get to the games, they should just be able to pick up a phone and speak to a person who fix the problems. That's custom a service 101. And I don't care, it is repeated through this quite a bit. The things are trending towards are more digitalised,

1:07:24way of doing things. It doesn't mean it's the right way to do things for your fans. I'm absolutely fine with using digital ticker and digital systems. But I come from a tick background so I'm comfortable in that environment. That doesn't mean that everyone else is. And I remember when Steve Davison was at the club and he used to lean on the data around this and say, well, it was around like senior fans who didn't basically want or didn't own mobile phones who couldn't use digital ticker. And it was like, well, it's basically a tiny percentage of the fans. And I was like, well, people were saying at the time, well, that doesn't matter. These people still matter, each fan matters. And it's the same with this scenario here with disabled fans. It might only be a small portion of the fan base. They're still important. And we have to help people as much as we possibly can. They just want to be fans. They just want to go to games and support the team, you know. It's scandalous really to say it's only a small proportion. Because if you applied that,

1:08:25the certain groups in society said, oh, it's only a small proportion. But we're not bothered about giving them the most adequate service. They'd be absolute hell on. That's that's that bit about disabled fans being unable to sort out arrangements for the whole game. That I think we can all agree. And I assume the club agree as well. But that is that is a disgrace. There should be no situation where fans disabled able bodied fail unable to attend because suit the full arrangements are in place. And just quickly again, go back to that digital background and you've got good tech know how and what have you. You shouldn't need to have good tech know how. It should just be a basic standard of computing knowledge. It's all it should be required. I think I've got a reasonable understanding. I've got asked by a friend to go around with their house

1:09:28this week to help them set up their friends and family network, their like close relationships. The system would not let us do it. And that is not because I'm old or I'm this or I'm that. It was because the system wouldn't let us do what we needed to do. So if we're going to go digital and we're going to be forced down that route, then at least needs to be fit for purpose. Yeah, I agree. I completely agree. And then some other stuff around concerns of disabled fans in here around taking an accessibility. It looks like the club are changing the way taking them for what was previously known as personal assistance. Then I'm going to be called companions and it effectively allows disabled supporters who bring somebody along with them to help them at the game. They can change who that is. Which I think is a positive thing definitely. Some other bits and pieces here that there will be a cleanup under the sun and sign. I've

1:10:32mentioned that in the past. You've got you've got where the new sign is and all that. And the stadium looks monkey. I know it's a big job. But you know, but Garve again and I'll defend the club on this one. I was told the reason and why it hadn't been cleaned or and if that's true, I would have been perfectly fine with it. But I heard it like on the grave fine, it wasn't through any sort of official comms. So the club in that instance could have done itself a favour and actually people would have said, oh fair play it with them. I can see why they're doing it like that. So you know, that it might seem like a simple thing. It's a shame that they're taking bullets not only for the things they're getting wrong because they've got no trust at the moment. They're also getting flak for stuff that they aren't necessarily at the blame for. Yeah. Indeed. There's a lot other little bits and pieces in there. I will actually put the link to

1:11:33to read these minutes yourself into the show notes as well. So people if they want to have a good read through themselves, they can. But a lot coming off their Android, a lot. I mean, it's been a it has been busy for the club. I think we're not dragging them over the calls here for all of this stuff. I think it's clearly been difficult. They clearly are stretched resource wise. But a lot more questions and answers, I would say off the back of this. I think the big ones we've highlighted there would be personally for me. I'm interested in the future of the club. Given we've got an interim CEO, that's the big one for me coming out of this. Some of the tickling stuff, the club have said they're trying to improve, they're willing to improve, they're going to meet regularly. I think that was a big thing that they've committed to giving monthly updates to the collective about all of these things. So it means that we're not waiting every quarter to get answers to problems. Old, I mean, even reading through these minutes towards the end there was made mention of encouraging fans to get into

1:12:39the ground for the A's at Altenaw game early. So much has changed since then. It's been like, it's been like three weeks or so since that game. Things change rapidly. Issues get bigger rapidly. So yeah, I'm really glad the club are committing to do that monthly. But yeah, I don't know. I think there was a bit more of a negative tone coming off the back of that, but it's warranted because fans are frustrated with all these problems. We don't like sitting here, pointing at the club and going, you should be doing better. But that is the role of fans to hold into account, to make sure experiences improved, to point out where they're getting things wrong. We need to club that listens, we need to club that acts. And hopefully by the time this next meeting happens, the next time that we get some minotrommers support is collective. I mean, hopefully by then, they've really made big strides forward and we're going, well done Tom Burwell, well done Sunday FC for listening to fans. That's what we need to say, actions not words. So yeah,

1:13:40people might criticize Burwell, say all the things that have said about him online about, you know, he's very corporate and he's listening to that. He's got a real opportunity to win some heart and minds now because there's been an acknowledgement that this problem's, there's been an acknowledgement that things need to improve. Let's say some action and hopefully, like I say, hopefully he wins a bit of respect from supporters as a result of that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if they were to acknowledge these issues and still not do anything to correct them, people would then properly hit the roof. You're right, there's a lot in those minutes and there's a lot of things we haven't even touched on. I mean, there was membership queries and that, which we haven't had chance to get through. There is a lot needs to be sorted. I'm personally a little bit more optimistic now because of the commitment to monthly meetings. I hope people listening to this do appreciate that we're

1:14:42coming at this from a point of love and a point of wanting the club to do better. We're not just neither of us enjoy being critical or I don't think. I mean, I'm worried my happy collaborative membership is going to be a little bit more. We've got the two biggest happy clubbers in the Howie the Podcast team of Saturn went through a lot of sort of negative stuff. It's tested us, aren't it? Exactly. And I get it. Apologies if I've said anything out of turn or of individuals at the club fail as if we're attacking them. We're not main into, we just we care and this club is going somewhere and hopefully the fans are able to go there with them. So that's the only reason we're doing it at the moment. 100% made. Well, thank you very much for your time again. It's been lovely. As always, catch you up with you. Thank you to our listeners. We go and absolutely know where,

1:15:45as I've stressed repeatedly over the three break. We've, it's not even been a break. I want my call on it a break for. We've got the Brighton game coming up next weekend though. So we're going to be building towards that over the coming days on Howie the Podcast and the Rotor report website. Can't wait to just talk about a foot you again. But I will say again, one thing this break has been useful for is we can talk about stuff like this, which are big problems that may be murmuring the background when you're going from midweek weekend to midweek weekend, reacting and talking about games. Sometimes we don't get to go in depth on some of these problems and hopefully buy your sitting here, running through this stuff with people that's been helpful, hopefully highlighting some of the problems, helps click the key club interaction I don't know. Hopefully people feel like they're being listened to and I would just urge fans listening to this to do what I said a couple of days ago, go and fill out the Red and White Army supporter survey for 2026 because for as Dave Rose said on the pod the other day, the club want to know the feedback from this, they want

1:16:48to act on it. And that means your voice can be heard. So if you're having problems with anything at all, you need to fill that survey out because yeah, it's going to lead to a better for for for us as fans and I think that's the main, the main takeaway. In fact, again, as well as the meeting minutes, I'll put the link to the survey in the in the show north for this podcast. So yes, thank you very much to our listeners. We will be back with another short tomorrow or catch you there. This episode is brought to you by Born in Roma fragrances by Valentino Beauty, the iconic fragrance duo. Donna Born in Roma, O. Departum is a feminine fragrance featuring juicy black central jasmine, woody cashmurren and warm vanilla. Its masculine counterpart, Wombo Born in Roma, O. Departum has notes of fresh violet leaf, aromatic sage, green vetiver,

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