Crawley Town co-owner Preston Johnson says WAGMI United are determining ‘what changes need to be made’

Johnson posted a video on Twitter last night addressing the recent criticism from Crawley’s supporters following the clubs poor start to the season. “I want you guys to know that everything is on the table,” said Johnson. “Over the next few weeks, we’ll be examining every aspect of the club to determine what changes need to be made. From personnel, strategy, tactics, culture, everything.”

Since the appointment of Kevin Betsy as the club’s new manager for this season, Crawley have had high ambitions of contesting with promotion out of League Two. However, after their first ten opening games, the Reds have only won one and only gained six points.

“The performances and results have simply not been good enough,” said Johnson. “I’m extremely frustrated just like all of you. More than anybody else, when this club is on the pitch, we want fans to feel good about cheering for them. Quite frankly, we’ve failed to create that and there’s no excuses. But we’re not going to except it either.”

Before the takeover of Crawley Town by WAGMI United in April this year, Crawley were arguably in a comfortable place. However, their end of season results were stagnating under their previous owners and whilst all seemed fine behind the scenes, financially the club needed a life line. “I’ve heard people say in the last few weeks,” said Johnson on some views expressed online. “That if WAGMI hadn’t shown up, the club would’ve just gone on doing things the exact same way. Crawley would have been a League Two club forever; everyone would’ve been better off.

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“But that’s not realistic. The club was being unsustainably run for the last few years, even at League Two level. It was losing over £1million each year. On top of that, there was almost £2million to pay off in debt stretching back almost four years. We struggled to even get a loan to hire vehicles for the club. Meanwhile, other clubs are spending to get better, and Crawley were continually cutting costs. You can only do that for so long before there’s serious consequences.”

WAGMI United have invested a lot of funds into creating a solid financial foundation for the club since taking charge five months ago. Alongside several summer signings and a new manager, the owners also realise that in order to spend money, they club needs to make money. More recently, the club announced a partnership with the online YouTube group, the Sidemen to attract a wider audience. However, several fans weren’t happy when realising the deal will involve a player from the Sidemen’s charity football match, being on the bench for Crawley’s opening FA Cup game in November.

“Sometimes we might need to try some unconventional ideas that feel unfamiliar,” said Johnson, trying to justify their goal to brand the club as the ‘internets team’.” I understand the concern with the Sidemen partnership. I hear you and read all of your messages. But the opportunity to introduce Crawley Town FC to millions of new potential fans and create new revenue streams for the club was massive. Since announcing that, we’ve had fans messaging us expressing their excitement along with big, major brands reaching out for long term deals. We’ve even had some EFL executives reaching out to say how genius the idea is. Whilst I understand the discomfort from fans, it’ll bring more exposure to the club and enable us to continue to grow.”

Crawley host Stevenage this weekend in what could be a pivotal moment for the club. Although a win is unlikely against third placed Stevenage, fans could be swayed if Betsy’s side can put more on a strong performance.

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