As Carlton's fans continue to give the club the cold shoulder, it has turned to the AFL for help with its 2015 membership drive – a campaign the new CEO concedes was mismanaged around Christmas and has since been partly outsourced.

Unwilling – just four weeks from the Blues' season-opening blockbuster against Richmond – to set a member target for this year, club boss Steven Trigg said his concern about what was "clearly a major challenge for us" led him to seek AFL assistance in January.

Carlton boss Steven Trigg was unsure how many membership renewals the club might have missed out on in December. Credit:Mal Fairclough

This followed Trigg learning that for a period last December Carlton did not have enough people working on membership – a scenario that saw the club miss phone calls and lose renewals through a problematic website.

After setting a club record two years ago in exceeding 50,000 members, the Blues' membership tally was 36,744 as of Wednesday.