Our thanks go to our supporter representatives who give their time to table matters for discussion which are important to the groups they represent. 



The meeting was chaired by our Chief Communications Officer, Kate Laurens, and attended by Co-Chair, Josh Kroenke, CEO, Richard Garlick, Chief Commercial Officer, Juliet Slot, and other subject matter experts from the club.



Our supporters were represented by our AAB co-chair Drew Gray (Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association), Daniel Bailey (Arsenal Disabled Supporters’ Association), Nigel Phillips (standing in for Tim Payton, Arsenal Supporters’ Trust), Kate Holden (Arsenal Women’s Supporters Club), Angela Kidd & Mick Padfield (Domestic Supporters’ Clubs), Darce Styles (GayGooners), Ahmed Sobeh (International Supporters’ Clubs), and our new Community Representative, Sakinaah Boateng.

CEO’s update 

Richard Garlick kicked off the meeting with some reflections on recent club news, including him stepping into the role of CEO and the appointments of Kelly Blaha, Otto Maly, Dave Steiner and Ben Winston to our Board.

Co-Chair, Josh Kroenke, spoke about the new Board members’ skills and expertise that will inject fresh thinking and energy to help achieve our ambitions to win major trophies. Josh added that Ben Winston’s lifelong support for the club adds another important element to the Board.

Richard reflected on our success at the Ballon d’Or awards, with our women’s team named Club of the Year and Viktor Gyokeres who received the Gerd Muller trophy.  These awards and the nominations received are recognition of our progress and being back at the top of European football. We also discussed the strong start we’ve made in our domestic campaigns following a summer of investment in our teams. Backed strongly by Stan, Josh and the Board, we’re in a strong position ready to compete on all fronts.  

Turning to our community, Richard spoke about the kick-off of our initiative to offer 1,000 tickets to our men’s fixtures available to our local community this season.

There were also reflections from the group about the club’s recently-launched Together Against Suicide service, which sees a mental health nurse at The Arsenal Hub ready to support anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts at every Premier League home match.

Richard then gave updates from the latest Premier League shareholders’ meeting, and the group discussed challenges experienced at some European away matches last season.

New Community representative

We are pleased to welcome local resident, Sakinaah Boateng to represent the voices of our local community. Sakinaah has been connected to Arsenal since she joined our Girls Kicks programme at 13.

Our Community Representative position was created last season to give a voice to Arsenal supporters in our local community of Islington.



Sakinaah is an aspiring broadcaster and joined the Black Collective of Media in Sport (BCOMS) programme in the summer of 2024 which collaborates with Arsenal. Through BCOMS, Sakinaah has had the opportunity to hone her skills reporting on Premier League matches at Emirates Stadium.

Commercial partnerships strategy

This summer, we’ve welcomed a growing number of globally recognisable brands to our family of partners – from Guinness to L'Oréal. Our partners boost our ambition to win major trophies, and as part of our ongoing commitment with AAB to share more behind our key priorities, our Chief Commercial Officer Juliet Slot shared our partnership strategy and how it drives revenue that is reinvested into our teams.

Away tickets

Further to a submission by the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust, our Venue Director, Tom McCann, provided an update on how we ensure men’s away tickets reach supporters on our membership schemes in a period of significant demand and with a challenging backdrop of illegal ticket touting.  

Raising the AAB'S profile

It was agreed that raising the profile of the group and the work we do together is a key objective echoed in our Supporter Engagement Plan. We want to engage diverse voices from around the world in discussions which help drive our success.  



We’re excited for our supporters to see and hear more about the AAB this season and we’ll be sharing how supporters can get closer to the AAB on a matchday and virtually.

Supporter questions

Throughout the meeting we answered questions and discussed a range of topics including support for away travel to WSL matches. It was agreed the AAB will once again hold joint meetings with our supporter forums this year to make progress on strategic matters. 



The next AAB meeting is scheduled for Monday, 1 December. Our Women's Matchday Forum (29 September) and Matchday Experience Forum (8 October) met recently while our Ticketing Forum will meet on 11 November. We'll also be meeting with our EDI & Sustainability Forum members over the coming weeks. We share our thanks once again to our supporters for their time and input on these important matters for our club.