Wimbledon supporters will attend a crucial meeting on Monday evening to discuss a highly emotive proposal to end the club’s supporter-owned structure in return for new investment. A suddenly announced £11m shortfall for the construction of their new stadium has led the club’s owner, the mutually owned Dons Trust, to propose raising £7.5m by selling shares to private investors.

The proposal has prompted immediate resistance from many supporters, including the first chairman, Kris Stewart, who were leading figures in the campaign against the old Wimbledon FC being moved to Milton Keynes and the formation of the new supporter-owned club in 2002.

AFC Wimbledon’s remarkable progress from starting in the Combined Counties League to reaching the Football League in 2011, then promotion to League One five years later, stands as arguably the greatest achievement of the supporters’ trust movement.

“AFC Wimbledon was re-formed in order to keep the flame alive – the memories and achievements of both the previous players and fans – as well as being a living, breathing entity,” the group of supporters said in a statement. “It was also re-formed to return Wimbledon’s football club to the heart of the community.

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“We did it to once again belong, to be an active partner in the community, and to remind everyone how inclusive and enthralling a football club can be. Central to that mission was keeping that entity safe from those who may by design or accident threaten that in the short, medium or long term. That – fan ownership as control and care – is not up for grabs; it is now part of our DNA.”

The new £31.5m 9,000-seat stadium planned as the next phase of the club’s development is under construction close to the former Plough Lane ground in Wimbledon and is scheduled to open at the start of next season.

Dons Trust members were informed on 20 November that the club is facing a serious shortfall in the financing of the stadium, with costs having increased by £7m-£8m and a total £11m yet to be raised. The cost increases were attributed to planning delays and inflation, around £2m in losses from increasing the playing budget to give the club the best chance of staying in League One and construction complications including needing more steel for the west stand.

In a letter to members the chairman, Mark Davis, said that borrowing the necessary money is difficult and that discussions have been held with a group of investors prepared to put in £7.5m. They would want shares in return and representation on the board, Davis said, although they would agree to the trust having a veto over “existential issues” such as selling the stadium, relocating the club or changing the club’s name, colours or badge.

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“It would mean some major changes to our ownership structure and governance and would be a big change in direction for AFC Wimbledon,” Davis said.

The club has sought to set out answers in a long open post on its website to an immediate 50-question response from concerned supporters and to explain why the private investment is a more attractive route than trying to borrow the money.

The proposal to trade full supporter ownership for investment follows a similar choice faced by supporters at Portsmouth, who ultimately voted, in 2017, to sell the club to the US investor, the former Walt Disney executive Michael Eisner. Portsmouth had been taken over by the supporters trust, with local investor-partners, following the club’s catastrophic collapse and administration in 2010.

AFC Wimbledon, however, has been supporter-owned since its formation in 2002 and remains a beacon for the principle of mutual rather than investor ownership of football clubs. Monday night’s meeting has been called to discuss the issue in detail, with a view to understanding the strength of feeling, before any proposal is put to a vote.