RTG is watching with great interest to see how the proposed takeover of Blue Square Premier club Ebbsfleet United progresses. For anyone out there who does not know, this is the internet-driven trust fund, MyFootballClub.com, where already 20,000 subscribers from around the globe have paid £35 each into a trust fund with the specific aim of purchasing a football club. Ebbsfleet has become the chosen target and negotiations are well in hand with directors and coaching staff. Just so you know, it is proposed that subscribers get to vote on issues such as team selection, transfers, formations and ground improvements – that is the entire operation of the club.
The current manager, Liam Daish, initially sceptical about the idea, seems to be embracing it now that he has a rumoured £250,000 to spend on players. Don’t be fooled by this amount. This is a fortune at that level where players earning four to five hundred pounds per week are said to be well paid. RTG supports this idea wholeheartedly because, as a test case, it will be interesting to see how it pans out. However, can it really work?
Take the case of Mr Daish as an example. What manager in his right mind is going to spend days training with his squad just to have some lardy, wannabe, desk johnny tell him who is in and who is out for Saturday, and what formation he has to play? Expect to see spurious injuries abounding in advance of team voting day! Taking the example up a level or two, look at Manchester United in 1989/90. If it had been left to Manchester United supporters, Alex Ferguson would almost certainly have been sacked, making you wonder where they would be now nine Premiership titles, one European Cup and Five FA Cups later. As recently as last season, many Arsenal fans were getting increasingly frustrated with Arsene Wenger as results didn’t go their way. That could have started a snowball effect of supporter discontent in advance of what has become a very promising season. A season which, in fact, may not have been allowed to happen. In addition, how would you prevent infiltration from rival supporters who would certainly not act in the best interests of the club – and yes, there are people out there who would do it.
Broadly, RTG is very much in favour of clubs being owned by supporters. Currently, there are something like 100 football trusts set up in England. Only four actually own a club – Brentford, Bournemouth, Chesterfield and Stockport. However these were established mainly to save the clubs from bankruptcy, and to remain within their locale. It should be noted that whilst they laudably achieved their original aims, they are all currently struggling clubs. At the other end of the scale, taking Barcelona and Real Madrid as examples, we can see that supporter-owned clubs at the highest level can be done very successfully. However, it should be noted that the cultural backdrop to these clubs is very different. Barcelona’s membership grew as a direct result of the Catalan independence movement and they are seen as, in their words, ‘More than a Club’. Though, given the examples above, it is interesting to note that there is a supporters’ lobby in favour of sacking Frank Rijkaard and bringing in Jose Mourinho. Real Madrid were seen very much as the sporting figure-head of General Franco’s fascist government so membership could be said to have had ‘its privileges’. Periodically they have elections to vote in the President/CEO, and these have amounted to ‘beauty’ contests where all sorts of promises are made and subsequently broken. Though, interestingly, one of the slickest election campaigns run by Lionel Perez, brought in the disastrous ‘Galacticos’ policy which saw Real Madrid go through their leanest trophy winning period since pre-Franco times.
Take the modern Premiership. Unless you have a wealthy, sincere, benefactor, you can’t really compete. There aren’t that many of them around and we don’t really want our national game dependent on them. So supporter-owned clubs are definitely a positive step forward. However, how they should be run needs to be debated and then formalised so as not to become the fiefdoms of individuals, or groups of individuals, which both Barcelona and Real Madrid (amongst many others) have suffered from. It should be a step toward greater transparency of how the national game is run in the interests of the sport, and not in the interests of shareholders.
The current manager, Liam Daish, initially sceptical about the idea, seems to be embracing it now that he has a rumoured £250,000 to spend on players. Don’t be fooled by this amount. This is a fortune at that level where players earning four to five hundred pounds per week are said to be well paid. RTG supports this idea wholeheartedly because, as a test case, it will be interesting to see how it pans out. However, can it really work?
Take the case of Mr Daish as an example. What manager in his right mind is going to spend days training with his squad just to have some lardy, wannabe, desk johnny tell him who is in and who is out for Saturday, and what formation he has to play? Expect to see spurious injuries abounding in advance of team voting day! Taking the example up a level or two, look at Manchester United in 1989/90. If it had been left to Manchester United supporters, Alex Ferguson would almost certainly have been sacked, making you wonder where they would be now nine Premiership titles, one European Cup and Five FA Cups later. As recently as last season, many Arsenal fans were getting increasingly frustrated with Arsene Wenger as results didn’t go their way. That could have started a snowball effect of supporter discontent in advance of what has become a very promising season. A season which, in fact, may not have been allowed to happen. In addition, how would you prevent infiltration from rival supporters who would certainly not act in the best interests of the club – and yes, there are people out there who would do it.
Broadly, RTG is very much in favour of clubs being owned by supporters. Currently, there are something like 100 football trusts set up in England. Only four actually own a club – Brentford, Bournemouth, Chesterfield and Stockport. However these were established mainly to save the clubs from bankruptcy, and to remain within their locale. It should be noted that whilst they laudably achieved their original aims, they are all currently struggling clubs. At the other end of the scale, taking Barcelona and Real Madrid as examples, we can see that supporter-owned clubs at the highest level can be done very successfully. However, it should be noted that the cultural backdrop to these clubs is very different. Barcelona’s membership grew as a direct result of the Catalan independence movement and they are seen as, in their words, ‘More than a Club’. Though, given the examples above, it is interesting to note that there is a supporters’ lobby in favour of sacking Frank Rijkaard and bringing in Jose Mourinho. Real Madrid were seen very much as the sporting figure-head of General Franco’s fascist government so membership could be said to have had ‘its privileges’. Periodically they have elections to vote in the President/CEO, and these have amounted to ‘beauty’ contests where all sorts of promises are made and subsequently broken. Though, interestingly, one of the slickest election campaigns run by Lionel Perez, brought in the disastrous ‘Galacticos’ policy which saw Real Madrid go through their leanest trophy winning period since pre-Franco times.
Take the modern Premiership. Unless you have a wealthy, sincere, benefactor, you can’t really compete. There aren’t that many of them around and we don’t really want our national game dependent on them. So supporter-owned clubs are definitely a positive step forward. However, how they should be run needs to be debated and then formalised so as not to become the fiefdoms of individuals, or groups of individuals, which both Barcelona and Real Madrid (amongst many others) have suffered from. It should be a step toward greater transparency of how the national game is run in the interests of the sport, and not in the interests of shareholders.
Reclaim the Game - The Week's Events
- The English press has jumped on Michel Platini's apparently negative remarks about England's 2018 World Cup bid saying he is supposedly against us. What he actually said was that there were several European bids being made and he would judge each of them on merit. So let's not get hysterical. But at RTG we're getting a little concerned at the idea of the English having to be sycophantic to a Frenchman over the next few years. It just doesn't sit well!
- Talking of Platini. He is finding his reforms of the Champions League are much harder to implement and, in fact, are now so watered down as to have made virtually no difference apart from fourth place now has to play two qualification rounds rather than one.
- The Coventry versus West Brom fixture on Monday night saw the referee clearly consulting with the fourth official (who happened to be looking at the Sky coverage) in the sending off of Coventry's Michael Mifsud. The referee obviously didn't see the incident which was a blatant sending off offence, so the only conclusion to draw is that he was actually dismissed as a result of video evidence. Have they introduced it through the back door without us knowing? Without a clear policy this is just going to lead to more confusion, more angst and more disagreement in football.
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