For years, Swindon Town has struggled with ownership troubles, and even though Ian Holloway has improved the team’s performance on the pitch, questions still surround the club’s senior executives.
Former owner Lee Power sold the Robins to Australian billionaire Clem Morfuni in 2021, hoping to fix the problems his predecessor had left behind.
This hasn’t been the case, though, as the majority stakeholder has been unimpressive since coming on board. He hasn’t shown professionalism by paying HMRC and other parties late, and he has even broken EFL regulations in an effort to pay off the club’s debts.
A nonviolent protest group called “Spirit of ’69” has been formed in response to the Australian’s lack of forethought, and they are calling on their owner to sell the club. It is unclear if this result will materialise, but for the time being, all Robins fans can hope for is more openness and enhancements around the team from Morfuni while he is in charge.
Clem Morfuni urged to increase transparency to Swindon Town supporters
To get a County Ground point of view on the current transparency of Swindon’s ownership, Football League World spoke to their resident Robin, Ciaran Daniel, who revealed that the word transparent is something that he cannot associate with Morfuni and Co.
“They’re absolutely not transparent enough in my eyes,” said Daniel. “I know some supporters will share this view and some won’t.
“There is some information they can’t share with the fans because it would be commercially sensitive, but they could be a lot more open about very basic things.
“Some clubs provide very detailed accounts. We have provided the most undetailed accounts in this regime, and less detailed than the former owners’ final accounts.
“We don’t give deadlines for things. For example, the club shop at the start of the season, they wouldn’t give us a deadline for it to be sorted, and when they did, they missed their own deadline. Three or four times they have done it with various other projects on the ground as well. They haven’t been open about how they will get funding for ground redevelopment.
“Once, when Clem Morfuni said there had been an error on Companies House with shares allocated to some people’s names, he got the former CEO to read a statement to that effect. And then, three or four days later, he admitted what it was. That isn’t open and transparent; that is throwing someone under the bus, and the old CEO was a Swindon fan and still goes to games now.”
