Part of how AFC Wimbledon expect to pay for its new stadium will be by asking the public for donations.

This announcement from the club's chief executive was made in the programme notes for the past weekend's Gillingham game.

"One of the important elements of financing our new stadium is a proposed crowdfunding," Mr Samuelson said.

"Our thoughts about how to go about this are now crystallising, so I thought I’d explain more about it.

"In our case, 'crowdfunding' has come to mean an issue of shares in AFCW PLC, which owns the club and also owns The Wider Interests of Football Limited, the company that will own the new stadium.

"We have issued shares before, back in 2003, when we raised a substantial sum towards the cost of buying our current home."

But he said this time will be different.

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"First of all, this time investors would be buying shares in an established company, with a good track record both on and off the pitch," the chief executive added.

"Second, the underlying value of shares in an EFL club with a new stadium in the offing is also, very obviously, much higher than for a non-league club that has been in existence for only a year and is in a league five levels below League Two.

"In other words, we think the proposition is far more attractive to third parties than it was 16 years ago, at the time of the previous share issue.

"And that is a key point: in order to raise a substantial sum of money, we need to look outside the fanbase – and we will be actively doing so."

Last week Merton Council approved plans to drop a crèche from the development.

As well as brand new stadium on the site of the old greyhound stadium the development will include more than 600 new homes.

An amendment on the plans includes getting rid of a crèche and cafe as well as including 28 extra flats.

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"Some years ago, the Dons Trust Board anticipated this sort of proposal and created a form of protection which is designed to prevent the club or the stadium from being sold off without due consideration and a very thorough democratic process," Mr Sameulson added.

"With support from specialist advisors, we are now going through the process of preparing to launch the share issue so that we can do so at short notice, if necessary.

"Part of that preparation is to act on the advice we’ve been given by all the specialists we’ve spoken to. That advice is that, for a share issue to succeed, it is very important that it gets off to a strong start – and a good way to do that is to have some investors lined up who have already committed to buying shares."