Action For Albion to meet West Brom board
Following his recent media appearances, Action For Albion founder Ali Jones has been invited to a sit-down conversation with West Brom CEO Ron Gourlay.
Right then folks, I have some breaking news.
This evening Ian Skidmore called me to accept our offer of the olive branch. We are meeting at some point next week.
Please don’t ask what and how the meeting will be constructed because I don’t know these details as yet.
— WBA Independent Supporters Trust (@WBA_IST) January 6, 2023
The recent development comes after months of hard work by Jones. He founded Action For Albion in November and they have recently seen an upturn in media exposure.
His New Year’s Day interview in the Sports Gazette was endorsed by fans and journalists alike. Jones has also been invited to discuss the situation on local radio, TalkSPORT, The Guardian and Kieran Maguire’s The Price of Football among others.
Action For Albion want more transparency from the West Brom board. The club’s debts are growing while its owners owe a combined £12m to the club itself.
According to the club’s publicly available accounts, owner Lai Guochuan has taken out £7m from the club on very generous terms since he bought it.
However, subsequent cash flow problems meant the club was recently forced to take out a high-interest £20m loan from MSD Holdings.
Club personnel had previously not been willing to address the matter publicly so the news comes as a boost for many Baggies supporters.
Following their 1-0 home victory against Reading on Sunday, 4000 fans joined Action For Albion outside the stadium to form a peaceful but vocal protest against Mr. Lai.
This represented the biggest participation in a protest organised by the group to date.
Jones told the Sports Gazette that the meeting with Gourlay, the one-time Chelsea and Reading CEO, was a positive step.
“I’ve had an honest and open conversation with [director of communications] Ian Skidmore. I’m grateful for that,” he added.
“He wasn’t able to discuss the issue with me because it’s not his jurisdiction but I appreciate that he wanted to speak to me personally.
“We agreed that we could set aside our differences and move forwards positively. Despite being on different sides of the current argument, we both want the same thing: success at West Brom.”
Jones was then invited to a face-to-face meeting with Skidmore that Gourlay would also attend.
The club and Jones have agreed that following the meeting they will make the minutes publicly available.
Jones welcomed this level of transparency but urged caution. He said he couldn’t be sure how productive the talks would prove to be.
Despite the plans for discussion, the meeting will not stop Action For Albion carrying out planned protests.
