Every penny counts for MK Dons during coronavirus shutdown

Pete Winkelman is confident MK Dons can come out of the coronavirus pandemic in a financially safe position.

Despite no games being played and an empty hotel for the last three months, the recent snooker Championship League has sparked more bookings at the Marshall Arena as the landscape looks to return to normal.

With staff being furloughed, Winkelman admitted his priority has been to ensure people have jobs to come back to when business can resume but also said he has learned a lot about how he can run his operations smoother.

He said: "We’re waiting to see how the furlough schemes develops between now and October and there might have to be more decisions to make but I’m totally focused, as I have been the whole time, on trying to make sure we have a business to come back to and we have employment for people to come back to.

"Looking at the positives, maybe we can come out of this running the business better and we can use some of this learning time to make the forthcoming years the best years that we’ve had. I’m going to be positive but definitely, it’s been a tough thing to get through.

“I can be confident because we have a fantastic bank in Santander. They are very important business in Milton Keynes and they have certainly helped us through this situation. I’m hugely grateful to them. We’ve had to make some huge decisions in terms of looking at what our future overheads will look like."

Fans renewing their season tickets is one of the only sources of income at Dons at the moment, but after the season was curtailed last week, the club offered a refund policy on the 2019/20 season tickets which offered fans, amongst four options, the opportunity to claim back the four games they did not get to see or to leave the money with the club.

“Fundamentally, our season ticket holders didn’t get the games so they should get their money back," Winkelman continued. "In this climate, giving money back, with no real income coming in, is a hard thing to do so we looked at some other options and for every supporter who does something different, I’m really grateful.

"Some of those refunds are needed. Everyone is in different circumstances and if they’ve got to have their cash, they can have their cash. To be fair, even if we had been behind closed doors, they didn’t get what they paid for. We will continue to do the right thing for our supporters.

"Every penny helps because we’ve got to navigate our way through this and reduce the impact that this has on us moving forwards. Even when we come back we won’t be in the same place we were before and that’s why we’ve taken some really difficult decisions. At the end of the day, I want us to go forward and continue to deliver great events for Milton Keynes.”