AGM Reveals True State Of Affairs

Crewe Alexandra's future does not look so bright following the club's 111th Annual General Meeting last night.

The club have said that players will have to be sold in order to see off a projected £1,000,000 loss this financial year and topping the list of potential sales is 17 goal man Shaun Miller.

Miller has had an impressive season and probably ranks as the club's most sellable player behind the group of Under-17s, who are still attracting big interest. However, the potential sale of Miller would only go part of the way to covering the loss and would leave the first team severely weakened.

The club also confirmed losses of £821,934 in the previous financial year, though this was previously reported on Vital following the release of the accounts. You can still download the full accounts by clicking HERE.The loss was despite taking into account the £850,000 sale of John Brayford and James Bailey.

Other news to come from last night's AGM includes that Clayton Donaldson is not likely to be offered any contract by the club despite netting 23 goals so far. It's almost certain Donaldson will be going elsewhere, leaving any offer from the club a waste of time.

Finally, Dario says the club are still fielding offers for the younger players but says the likes of Nick Powell, Max Clayton and Ben Garratt will not be sold off until they have featured for the first team.

Dario said at the AGM: 'I won't sell our young players before they had the chance of playing in our first team in front of our own supporters. Some clubs do that but I get no satisfaction from that and neither would our fans.

'I want to see those players play for us. If we sold Nick (Powell) our fans would say yeah he was with us for five minutes and now he is gone. If we were to sell Max (Clayton) then a lot of our fans would never have seen him play. What is the point in that?'

So whilst the club are facing big losses that are barely sustainable at this level, losses that could well put pay to any promotion hope for the next year at least, it looks like the club will remain defiant when it comes to keeping its most valuable assets - the academy prospects - but is it a plan that can pay off at this level?

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