Resilience key as club chief appeals to fans

Dundee’s American owners have vowed to steer the club to safety through the financial storm of Covid-19.

Dark Blues managing director John Nelms revealed pressures brought to bear on the Dens park outfit – which has lost half-amillion pounds’ worth of revenue over the last three months – are being replicated across owner Tim Keyes’ wider business portfolio.

The result is that Dundee must cut their cloth to survive.

But Nelms insists planning is already under way to ensure the Dark Blues emerge safely – and still under current ownership – from what has been an unprecedented crisis.

In a video message to fans posted on the club’s official website, he said: “The next stages are actually planning to get to May (the end of next season).

“(It’s about) Being as resilient as we can, everybody coming together, how we’re going to run the business between now and then and (sticking) to that plan.

“It’s going to be difficult. But this club has been in difficult positions before.

“We’re not going anywhere. We’ll figure it out together.”

He added: “The issue is that everything we do, all our other businesses, have been affected, nothing has been immune to this.

“Think about the issues we have at Dundee and we have these issues across the board. Our normal course of business and the way we run the business can’t operate the way we normally do it.

“We would like to expand our budgets and support all the different initiatives that we are trying to accomplish here but, this year, it is going to be whatever the club can afford.

“It is going to be really difficult and right now it looks like we are going to have less than half our normal income.”

Dundee remain hopeful their insurers will ease the situation by paying out on a business interruption policy claim, but, like many other organisations, they are awaiting a High Court judgment on the extent of insurance companies’ liabilities relating to Covid-19.

With little prospect of being fully reimbursed for their losses in the short-term, Nelms appealed to fans who have hung off on buying season tickets to make their move now – if they have the means.

“Our big issue right now is that we started to sell season tickets not knowing what we had on offer,” he explained.

“Quite a few people came out and bought season tickets, which is fantastic.

“We now know what the season will look like and we put out a new variation on the season tickets, which people started to uptake quickly, which is great.

“We really need everybody to take them up as quickly as you can.

“Usually at this time of year we have sold two thirds of our tickets and, understandably, we have only sold less than 10% of what our season tickets would normally be, not knowing how the season is going to pan out.

“But we are hoping that will continue and sales will be strong.

“If you have the means and are intending to buy a season ticket it would certainly help if that was done sooner rather than later because that helps mould everything we are doing.

“But I know that it’s a difficult time. We are saying: ‘If you can, please help.’

“If you can’t, we understand there are bigger things in the world than what we are doing and we will find a way through this, but we absolutely need everybody’s help.”

Jimmy Nicholl has been axed as assistant manager.