Exeter City has experienced varied fortunes over the course of its 105 year history. We are a club with a long experience of being pleased just to survive, and of battling to maintain a good standard of professional football for the City of Exeter and beyond to enjoy. Those years have been characterised by wonderful support from thousands of fans and hundreds of businesses, all of whom have contributed to also making the Club something unique and special in the hearts and appreciations of those who it serves.

Despite a relative lack of success on the pitch over that period, it still came as a shock and a near-terminal blow when the Club lost its Football League status in 2003. However, at that point a new model of a Supporters' Trust majority owned Club was established, with the supporters themselves battling and succeeding in saving the Club. The success of this model is clear, but so too is the inevitability that the initial model and structure has needed to evolve in order to fit the modern football and commercial world.

The Exeter City Supporters' Trust owned Club has consistently been at the forefront of evolution, not the least because there is no Club of its type which has progressed as far and successfully as ours has. At the same time we were delighted to start a relationship with Flybe which gave us enormous credibility, and provided a main club sponsor whom on a number of occasions have been there for us as a club financially above and beyond the call of duty, and have remained loyal in the years since.

During the period since 2003 the Club off the pitch has benefitted enormously from the unstinting efforts of volunteers, its staff team, Trust members, its Board of Directors and Sponsors. At the end of 2005, the then Club Board and the Board of Society of the Supporters' Trust identified the need to develop a vision and plan to guide the next phase of the Club's development. In commissioning and agreeing that plan (known as 'V10') the joint Boards committed to a radical but logical next step towards moving all aspects of the Club forward. The plan was to establish a Club both on and off the pitch that was competing at Football League One level by 2010.

The football contribution of the Club's managers over this period (Eamonn Dolan, Alex Inglethorpe and Paul Tisdale) and the oversight and support provided to them by Director of Football Steve Perryman has been outstanding. This has led to the position where we have secured promotion back to the Football League and a position of serious challenge to achieve League One status, whilst playing a consistently high quality of football.

Our success over this period has led to significant growth in the number of supporters at matches and the creation and selling out of most of our sponsorship and other commercial lines (revenue up over 50% in the last three years). In addition, the Club's infrastructure has continued to be maintained and updated as funds allow, aided considerably by volunteers from across the county and beyond. However, our current business model is now operating at close to capacity on all fronts, requiring us to consider and define the next phase of the Club's development.

In football there appear to be three traditional options for routes to achieve growth. The first would be to take on board a wealthy benefactor, the second to satisfy an apparently unlimited demand by building a stadium with as many seats as possible knowing that each match is likely to be sold out, and the third is to build upon the existing business model by developing and leveraging the stadium and other related assets. It is our judgment, based on history and the core values of the Club and its majority shareholder, that the only valid model for Exeter City is option three - to further develop all elements of the infrastructure of the Club to unlock the opportunity of positive future growth.

The Club Board commenced the work to achieve this with the joint commissioning of the Drivers Jonas report on options for the right stadium and location. We have used this report, and its recommendation to remain at St James Park, as the basis for a considerable amount of work over the second half of 2008 to date. We have also taken the opportunity to consider the options for us to design in outline the opportunity to take a different view on the potential for developing our usage and modernity of the Cat & Fiddle training ground.

The discussions with our various landlords, funders, development partners and other associated bodies have been long and extensive, and are reaching a point where we hope to be able to make some exciting formal announcements over the summer. Our time horizon to begin making the changes is to a certain extent forced upon us by the need to develop and implement plans for the reconstruction of the Old Grandstand at St James Park, but we are considering this in the context of the opportunity for the stadium footprint and its use as a whole.

The reason for this is that the full development of the infrastructure around St James Park and the Cat & Fiddle is the route to creating considerable future growth in our overall business and, with it, the opportunity to provide further momentum for Paul Tisdale and his plans for the football side of the club. In short, it is the Directors' and Shareholders' responsibility to be developing the Club in such a way that it safely delivers what will be required to continue our current level of success, and to create a football club which is the jewel in the crown of the City of Exeter, the Pride of Devon, and which will bring even greater pride and joy to the generations that follow on behind us.

In parallel with the work and plans outlined above we have spent considerable time, in conjunction with legal advisors, to determine the corporate structure and model required to enable us to unlock the opportunities now before us in a manner which absolutely preserves the Supporters' owned and community focused ethos of the Club. These plans, and feedback received on them by potential partners, have also underlined to us the need to continually improve the overall calibre and structure of those charged most directly with running the Club.

All businesses need to evolve and adapt in order to thrive, and the recent and planned progress of Exeter City has meant that the achievements of the V10 structure and plan now need to be moved forward to the next stage in order to raise our sights and unlock our potential still further. Because Exeter City is the first Supporters' Trust owned club to reach this stage we have no template or best practice to follow so we have, aided by considerable input, arrived at an agreement for the model of the next stage of our evolution by way of extensive discussion and negotiation between the Club and Trust Boards.

The first phase of the implementation of the model resulting from the agreement of all parties will commence immediately and will include the following changes:

1. With effect from the end of the current football season, the Supporters' Trust will relinquish the protocol whereby the Trust Chair is also the Chairman of the Football Club;

2. The Trust's governance position on the Club Board of Directors will be reinforced by the appointment of a second Trust Board of Society member to the Club Board of Directors;

3. Accordingly, Denise Watts will resign the position of Chair of Exeter City FC at the end of the current football season, and Roger Conway is appointed to the Board of Directors of the Club with immediate effect;

4.Both Boards would like to place on record their thanks and appreciation to Denise for the tireless work she has undertaken as Chair of the Club. Denise has been involved at a time of unprecedented success for Exeter City and has recognised that the future workload in fulfilling both roles is now too considerable for them to be combined at a practical level;

5. Denise will remain as one of the Trust's Club Board representative members. Roger Conway will also assume the role of Company and Board Secretary, reflecting the skills and background he is able to bring to the Board;

6. Both Boards wish to appoint a new Independent Club Board Chairman to oversee this next phase in the development of the club. The role and person specifications have been created and agreed and suitable candidates are invited to express their interest to Roger Conway who will provide the relevant information. We are seeking a candidate who has a proven track record at the highest level of the public or private sector, and who feels an affinity with what we are seeking to achieve at Exeter City;

7. We are of course delighted that we are able to communicate these plans alongside the announcement of the extension of Flybe's partnership with us as we move into the next phase of the Club's development. Flybe have been consistent, innovative, and community oriented sponsors throughout this most successful period in Exeter City's history and our mutual success speaks volumes as a testimony to the excellence of the way we will continue to work together.

8. The Club is pleased to announce that as part of a move towards partnering with appropriate and proven expertise to further profitably leverage our existing and future infrastructure we have signed a new retail partnership contract with Tony Pryce Sports.

Tony Pryce Sports will take over as franchise operator of the existing Club Shop, and will also be stocking a full range of Exeter City merchandise at almost all of their shops across the South West. Tony Pryce will also take over the provision and management of all aspects of the new, shortly to be launched, Exeter City Online Superstore.

In addition, Tony Pryce will retail the Club's new 2009-10 football kits, which will be manufactured by leading provider Carbrini.

These separate deals have been constructed after extensive invitation to tender and negotiation processes and will immediately bring significant increases in revenue and profitability to the Club.

We have therefore ended our retail and kit supply partnership with SHO Limited, who have been great supporters and providers to the Club over many years. We thank Bob Jobes and his team for their friendship and expertise. However, we are now in a position to negotiate improved commercial contracts and believe that the service we will be able to provide our supporters across the South West will be of greater benefit to all. We are delighted with our new arrangements. Further details will be announced in a separate press release;

9. The Club has also been evaluating options to upgrade all aspects of its food and beverage activity and will shortly be announcing the details of a significant change and step forward in the delivery, quality and profitability of this area of our business;

10.There are considerable corporate and legal changes that are being effected to enable the move to this newly emerging business model. The model will very much co-exist as part of a Trust and Community focussed club. Core to these are the opportunity for interested and appropriately skilled and qualified businesses or individuals who wish to partner with us to become involved through the injection of their capabilities, and of capital or revenue investment related to the stadium and overall business model expansion. Expressions of interest in this area are invited to be made to our Commercial Director, Paul Morrish.

These are exciting steps forward in the evolution of Exeter City. We wish to underline that none of the changes outlined above in any way compromises our status as a fans owned club. In many ways they reinforce the need for the City of Exeter and the County of Devon to move forward with us, and for anyone who is able to join the Supporters' Trust to help drive us to achieve this next stage.

This joint statement and the plans for the immediate next phase of the development of Exeter City Football Club have been resoundingly endorsed by Paul Tisdale as providing further reasons for his happiness to continue to work within the Club to build on the progress of the past few years.

There is considerable further work and progress that has been and will continue to be achieved in the near future, but which for reasons of commercial sensitivity cannot be detailed at present. Further and fuller details will though be provided as appropriate in the coming weeks and months.

The Board of Directors, Exeter City AFC Ltd and The Board of the Society of the Exeter City AFC Supporters' Trust.
24th April 2009.