Stadium MK consortium offered this proposition to several Football League clubs, including Luton Town, Crystal Palace, Barnet, Queens Park Rangers, and Wimbledon F.C.. Wimbledon F.C., who had groundshared at Crystal Palace's Selhurst Park ground since 1991, adopted the Milton Keynes plan after the appointment of a new chairman, Charles Koppel, in January 2001. Koppel said that such action was necessary to prevent Wimbledon F.C.'s going out of business. He announced Wimbledon F.C.'s intent to move on 2 August 2001 with a letter to the Football League requesting approval, stating that Wimbledon had already signed an agreement to relocate and "subject to the
Crystal Palace F.C. (1861) had been founded in 1857 by the Crystal Palace Company and played on the same pitch within Crystal Palace Park. Although both the cricket club and football club were amateur, they formed part of the Crystal Palace Company’s commercial enterprise, which was intended to generate revenue. Membership of the club was by subscription only, at a price of one guinea per season, and spectators who wished to watch the games had to pay the one-shilling entrance-fee into Crystal Palace Park. The football club’s players were not company-employees; typical membership was formed from wealthy upper-middle-class businessmen, men who could afford the