Source: Morning Star
Despite the some drama at the end of the football season it has yet again been good news for football co-ops.
OK, fan-owned Barcelona lost to Abramovich's Chelsea. But Chelsea still have to beat the 130,000 fans who own 84 per cent of Bayern Munich to win the title.
So it's another good season for fan-owned clubs, with three of the four Champion's League semi-finalists being owned by their fans.
The Bundesliga have a 50 per cent plus one rule which means no individual however wealthy can take control of one of its member clubs. So I will be cheering on Bayern in the final.
And when it comes to bankruptcy blues, why does no-one seem to be advocating fan ownership for Glasgow Rangers?
With their global support, surely if any club is capable of rebuilding themselves, it has to be Rangers on the back of such a hugely passionate fan base.
They are in an ideal position to go for fan ownership. Surely their experience of being owned by some particularly dubious people is enough to forever put them off being a rich man's toy.
Meanwhile in the lower divisions we have had some stunning performances from fan-owned clubs.
I will be cheering on Wrexham to make it into the football league after a dramatic year in which the club have been brought back to life thanks to the support of their fantastic fans.
Last summer players went unpaid and pre-season games where called off for lack of cash. Now they are on the verge of promotion.
The fans raised over £100,000 in a matter of hours to raise the conference bond and nearly 6,000 turned up for the battle of fan-owned clubs when they played AFC Telford on New Year's Day.
AFC Telford - another club undergoing rebuilding following a fan buyout - have managed to hang on to their place in the Blue Square League.
Sadly Exeter City, who do a tremendous amount in the community in Devon, will drop into the Championship League 2 to join AFC Wimbledon who have had, well, a mixed season back in the football league.
One of the most amazing performances of the season has been in the Premiership where Swansea, the only Welsh club ever to play in the Premiership, have set people talking with their brand of free-flowing football.
However, not many people realise that without the 20 per cent of the club in the ownership of the Supporters Trust, giving them a seat on the board, this success would not have been possible.
Over time, as other shareholders come and go, the Supporters Trust will most likely come to play an even bigger role in the club.
Elsewhere in Wales, Merthyr Town won promotion from the Western Football League Premier Division to the Southern League just two years after being reformed under supporter's ownership after the liquidation of Merthyr Tydfil FC.
There is no doubt that Supporters Direct, who promote supporters' club ownership and the formation of supporters' trusts, are doing a great job with 26 clubs now in ownership or control by supporters' trusts.
I will be looking forward to the contests for the Supporters Direct Shield between Fisher and Lewes and the Supporters Direct Cup, sponsored by the Co-operative Group, between Wrexham and Enfield Town when both games are played, on Sunday July 8, at Enfield Towns Queen Elizabeth Stadium.
Talking of stadiums, as well as reaching the play-off final in the Evo-Stick League, FC United of Manchester are also celebrating having raised £1.6 million in a community share issue.
This cash will unlock the grant funding they need to meet the costs of their new £4.6m stadium project and building work is set to begin soon at the Moston site.
Many people have commented that in the tussle between the two halves of Manchester that United have been held back this season by the huge burden of debt imposed on them by the Glaziers.
It was this argument that in many ways lead to the formation of FC United. They are not however the only critics of the Glaziers and their financial engineering.
One critic brings me back to where I began - it is Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness. He argues that it is unfair for the owners of the club to lumber them with almost £450m of debt, something many United fans would have agreed with when they woke up on the morning after City had overtaken them in the Premiership table.
This may soon become a much bigger issue as Bayern are vociferous supporters of Uefa's financial fair play regulations, which could see clubs barred from the Champions League if they fail to reduce losses and adhere to the new financial strictures by 2015.
The German club's chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge insists that Europe's governing body must get tough with those who ignore the rules.
At the moment only Arsenal of the highest profile Premier League clubs would comfortably meet the requirements of the new rules based on recently published financial results.
Under their current ownership model, Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City would all fail.
If it was needed, here is another good reason to rethink how our most popular sport is owned and run.
by Nick Matthews
Showing posts with label Morning Star. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Morning Star. Show all posts
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Monday, September 12, 2011
Football's future is in fan-owned clubs
Source: Morning Star
Supporters' groups around the country are proving that there is an alternative way to run the beautiful game, writes Nick Matthews
FOOTBALL COMMENT: There has been much debate about the Star's sports coverage.
As someone who believes in the cultural importance of sport, I see this section of the newspaper as important.
I confess that I love county cricket.
Indeed, the more meaningless the fixture the more I like it!
I am also an ecumenical rugby fan, enjoying League as much as Union.
I have, however, fallen out of love with modern football.
This is a complex issue and is perhaps something to do with the way football culture has become ubiquitous, elevating players into celebrities.
I suspect it is because I don't much like the people who play the game - people who despite their working-class origins have become in the immortal words of Jonathan Meades "a bespoke cast of gladiatorial yob-gods, Wag-roasting Croesus kids, who once a week descend from their Parnassian blingsteads to run around for 90 golden minutes of bravura vanity."
As the great CLR James pointed out when he said: "What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?"
The social, political and economic context of sport is crucial to its understanding.
My belief is that the role that football plays in our society has not changed as much as Sky television would like us to think.
After all, in English Journey - an account of a tour of the country in 1933 - JB Priestley describes a game between Notts County and Notts Forest: "Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game," he writes, citing "the heavy financial interests," and "the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the press."
However, he notes: "the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt and it has gone out to conquer the world."
It has most certainly conquered the world, but what I believe has changed since 1933 is not the game itself but the role of the spectator.
Are we just to sit in our armchairs as a Sky subscriber as if watching a soap opera?
Is the spectator to be a mere consumer or is the role of the fan to be more than just cheerleader?
This is the key question being tackled by Supporters Direct, an organisation that seeks to promote sustainable spectator sports clubs based on supporters' involvement and community ownership.
Since they were formed in 2000, they have changed the nature of the debate about who owns our sports clubs.
One of the shortlisted candidates for Co-operative of the Year at this year's Co-op Congress was to give it its full title the Exeter City AFC Supporters' Society Limited, which as an industrial and provident society (IPS) is a bonafide co-op and is the owner of Exeter City.
I have to say when I saw how much they were able to do in their community from the base of the football club, I was bowled over.
FC United of Manchester have shown what can be done from a standing start, raising over £1 million in their community share issue towards the new ground planned to be at Moston.
Fan-owned clubs are on a roll.
Many will be watching AFC Wimbledon back in the Football League after their club was kidnapped and taken to Milton Keynes.
I will be watching Telford United back in the Conference Premier after being rescued by their supporters trust.
Indeed, Telford is a hotbed of co-operation with the local ice hockey team, the Telford Tigers, being the only co-operative owned team in the national ice hockey league.
Supporters Direct have a proud record with 150 trusts at clubs up and down the country bringing £25m of new finance into football alone, with 26 clubs now in Trust ownership and 110 having shareholdings in their clubs.
This trend I believe can only go one way.
With the greatest club in the world, Barcelona, being in fan ownership, what better advertisement for this model could there be?
But it is not just football.
In Rugby League there are now supporter-owned clubs, such as Rochdale Hornets and Hunslett.
Many cricket clubs too are in co-operative ownership, including Surrey, Lancashire and Glamorgan which all feature in Britain's top 100 co-ops.
Modern fans can be more than just passive supporters and fan ownership has to be the way forward.
After all, who is more committed to a club and more hungry for success than its fans?
Who are the only people who can be trusted to stick with a club through thick and thin when the sugar daddies who see clubs as trophy assets bringing them status lose interest or, worse still, the clubs go bust?
I hope our sports coverage can cover more of the political economy of sport.
Ownership really does matter.
Who is profiting from the business of sport?
And to those who think this is OK for the minor league clubs but not for the Premier League giants - remember when the banks were too big to fail?
Monday 12 September 2011
by Nick Matthews
Supporters' groups around the country are proving that there is an alternative way to run the beautiful game, writes Nick Matthews
FOOTBALL COMMENT: There has been much debate about the Star's sports coverage.
As someone who believes in the cultural importance of sport, I see this section of the newspaper as important.
I confess that I love county cricket.
Indeed, the more meaningless the fixture the more I like it!
I am also an ecumenical rugby fan, enjoying League as much as Union.
I have, however, fallen out of love with modern football.
This is a complex issue and is perhaps something to do with the way football culture has become ubiquitous, elevating players into celebrities.
I suspect it is because I don't much like the people who play the game - people who despite their working-class origins have become in the immortal words of Jonathan Meades "a bespoke cast of gladiatorial yob-gods, Wag-roasting Croesus kids, who once a week descend from their Parnassian blingsteads to run around for 90 golden minutes of bravura vanity."
As the great CLR James pointed out when he said: "What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?"
The social, political and economic context of sport is crucial to its understanding.
My belief is that the role that football plays in our society has not changed as much as Sky television would like us to think.
After all, in English Journey - an account of a tour of the country in 1933 - JB Priestley describes a game between Notts County and Notts Forest: "Nearly everything possible has been done to spoil this game," he writes, citing "the heavy financial interests," and "the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the press."
However, he notes: "the fact remains that it is not yet spoilt and it has gone out to conquer the world."
It has most certainly conquered the world, but what I believe has changed since 1933 is not the game itself but the role of the spectator.
Are we just to sit in our armchairs as a Sky subscriber as if watching a soap opera?
Is the spectator to be a mere consumer or is the role of the fan to be more than just cheerleader?
This is the key question being tackled by Supporters Direct, an organisation that seeks to promote sustainable spectator sports clubs based on supporters' involvement and community ownership.
Since they were formed in 2000, they have changed the nature of the debate about who owns our sports clubs.
One of the shortlisted candidates for Co-operative of the Year at this year's Co-op Congress was to give it its full title the Exeter City AFC Supporters' Society Limited, which as an industrial and provident society (IPS) is a bonafide co-op and is the owner of Exeter City.
I have to say when I saw how much they were able to do in their community from the base of the football club, I was bowled over.
FC United of Manchester have shown what can be done from a standing start, raising over £1 million in their community share issue towards the new ground planned to be at Moston.
Fan-owned clubs are on a roll.
Many will be watching AFC Wimbledon back in the Football League after their club was kidnapped and taken to Milton Keynes.
I will be watching Telford United back in the Conference Premier after being rescued by their supporters trust.
Indeed, Telford is a hotbed of co-operation with the local ice hockey team, the Telford Tigers, being the only co-operative owned team in the national ice hockey league.
Supporters Direct have a proud record with 150 trusts at clubs up and down the country bringing £25m of new finance into football alone, with 26 clubs now in Trust ownership and 110 having shareholdings in their clubs.
This trend I believe can only go one way.
With the greatest club in the world, Barcelona, being in fan ownership, what better advertisement for this model could there be?
But it is not just football.
In Rugby League there are now supporter-owned clubs, such as Rochdale Hornets and Hunslett.
Many cricket clubs too are in co-operative ownership, including Surrey, Lancashire and Glamorgan which all feature in Britain's top 100 co-ops.
Modern fans can be more than just passive supporters and fan ownership has to be the way forward.
After all, who is more committed to a club and more hungry for success than its fans?
Who are the only people who can be trusted to stick with a club through thick and thin when the sugar daddies who see clubs as trophy assets bringing them status lose interest or, worse still, the clubs go bust?
I hope our sports coverage can cover more of the political economy of sport.
Ownership really does matter.
Who is profiting from the business of sport?
And to those who think this is OK for the minor league clubs but not for the Premier League giants - remember when the banks were too big to fail?
Monday 12 September 2011
by Nick Matthews
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