Ashton: We’re a Fair Way Down the Line On a New Sponsor Tuesday, 19th Nov 2024 21:08 Town chairman and CEO Mark Ashton says the club are “a fair way down the line” on recruiting a shirt sponsor to replace Ed Sheeran. Sheeran’s sponsorship of both the men’s and women’s senior teams is up at the end of the season after four years and both parties had previously announced that the arrangement won’t continue with the cash the Blues could achieve having risen significantly following promotion to the Premier League. Sheeran will maintain his connection with Town having taken a minority stake in the club earlier in the year. “Ed Sheeran came on board at a point where he and others weren’t happy with the gaming sponsor that was on the front of the shirt, people didn’t feel it was a fit for what they saw was a good representation of this football club,” Ashton said at tonight’s Fans’ Forum. “He’s been a fantastic sponsor, continues to be an amazing partner and friend and family member of the football club, but he’s now moved to an equity stake, which is even better. “That gives us an opportunity on the shirt. I’ve made the statement that we won’t put a gaming company on the front of the shirt. I think other clubs will look at us and think, ‘That’s going to cost you’. “Our challenge internally is to find the right non-gaming company which is a good fit for us and I think we’re a fair way down the line on that. It’s not easy but I think the way the club behaves and the values of the football club are key and I just wouldn’t want to sell those down the river for any old company. “I think we’re down the line on that and I’d like to think hopefully in the near future we might have some positive news to announce on that front.” Ashton says the club will continue to wear Umbro kit next season, despite Castore having bought the brand who have supplied the Blues’ strips since the summer of 2022. “We have one year left under the current agreement with Umbro, who are now owned by Castore, but we will not move the brand,” he said. “We will move into that last year and whilst we move into that last year, we will look at all opportunities and make the decision on what we do beyond Umbro. We may stay with them, but we’ll examine all opportunities moving forward. But next season we will be under the Umbro brand.” Meanwhile, the panel, who included manager Kieran McKenna, chief financial officer Tom Ball and chief operating officer Luke Werhun in addition to Ashton, were asked about parking on matchdays. “One of the things we continually look at with regards to Portman Road is the estate strategy on how the stadium flows, how the stadium works and let’s be under no illusion, 30,000 fans in every home game now, it’s stretching infrastructure and some of the infrastructure, although we’ve invested, is still tired,” Ashton admitted. “The Cobbold Stand is a natural development, the West Stand may also be developed to create the space to move fans so we can then rebuild the Cobbold Stand. “We’ve been in discussion with the council since the day we arrived on numerous projects, car parking is one.” Ball revealed that there will be more parking at Portman Road soon: “It is one issue, it is also a bit of a sensitive one as most of the car parks in the town are owned by IBC [Ipswich Borough Council] or Suffolk County Council. “It’s no secret, we’ve got some land on the back of the South Stand currently used as our matchday broadcast compound but expect to see within the next few weeks that we apply for a planning permission to put a car park in place over there. Hopefully we can start addressing some of that need fairly quickly.” Ashton was also asked whether the club has any plans to renovate the Portman Road PA further with fans having continued to express their frustrations, despite significant work in the summer of 2022. “Nope!” Ashton said. “The reality is that the Tannoy system that we’ve got simply isn’t good enough. We’ve invested in it, we’ve done everything that we can to improve it and we can’t do any more. “I’m not going to raise false hopes, we can’t do any more. To improve it, we’ve got to change the whole system and that’s going to be a cost of more than half a million pounds. When you’re looking at a stadium redevelopment, what I’m not going to do is spend half a million pound, put something in, knock a stand down and the money’s down the drain. “We will continue to have to make do the best we can with the system that we’ve got. And we’re playing around the levels all of the time. We have the company that organises and runs it in almost weekly, gamely to try and play around with the levels.” While a rebuild of the Playford Road training ground which is set to cost from £20-£30 million, is the next big project, Ashton says a dedicated home for the Ipswich Town Foundation is a longer-term aim. “One of the things that you’re probably going to hear about, we’ve talked about Playford Road, we’ve talked about Portman Road, one of the things that is now an aspiration for us is to actually develop our own community facility because [Foundation manager] Dan [Palfrey] and the Foundation are growing and growing and they need their own home,” he said. “They need their own pitches, they need their own changing rooms, they need their own classrooms because we simply don’t have enough to meet the demand. That’s a project that we will be looking at.” Meanwhile, it was confirmed that the club will be putting in place a season ticket waiting list with no new season tickets having been made available last summer due to more than 21,000 having been sold the previous year and the availability of home tickets having been reduced due to the larger away section required in the Premier League. “One hundred per cent yes,” Ball said. “I think we’ve had it in mind for quite a while and when we look at renewals and renewal rates on season tickets, usually every season there’s a number of people who don’t renew. I think we’re always told that it’s 10-12 per cent of season ticket holders in an average club who don’t. “I think we had five people last season who didn’t! We know that the demand’s there, we will be announcing our season ticket renewals in late March this year and when we do that, that is when we’ll be opening up the waiting list as well.”
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