s p o r t
Fan-powered football
Who needs Wayne Rooney? FC Utd of Manchester fans cheer another value for money goal. Photo by Matthew Wilkinson by Jonny Gordon-Farleigh
Co-operatives UK, which campaigns for businesses to become co-operatives, recently asked football fans how they thought their clubs should be run. An astonishing 83% of Manchester United fans and 72% of Liverpool fans felt their clubs would be in better hands if they were owned co-operatively, that is by supporters themselves. Most British football clubs are currently owned by private interests, with wealthy owners plugging funding holes with their own cash. This unsustainable business model comes with significant financial risks attached, as fans of Rangers, Portsmouth and Leeds will tell you.
In 2005, Manchester United went through a controversial debtled takeover by US businessman, Malcolm Glazer. There were protest marches outside Old Trafford; anti-Glazer chants at games; and a boycott of the club’s megastore: all to no avail. So one group of disgruntled supporters took matters into their own hands and created a supporterowned co-operative, which they named FC United of Manchester. To encourage collective financial responsibility, FC United asked supporters to decide how much they should pay for their own season ticket. The average contribution was £160 – nearly double what the club had suggested! This meant subsidised tickets could be offered to less well off members of the surrounding community.
There are all sorts of ways cooperative ownership can benefit football – and work along Transition lines. When Exeter City FC were owned by a small corporate group, members of the local community couldn’t park within a mile of the town centre on match days and were told that, since the club brought money to the city, they would have to accept the situation. By contrast, when Exeter City transitioned to fan ownership, it implemented a travel plan to encourage use of public transport, reduce their carbon footprint and co-operate with the needs of the local community. Another way fan-owned teams are reflecting the Transition project is their use of community share schemes. In 2012 FC United raised £1.6 million from their 3,000
members to build a new ground, which should be ready in time for the 2013-14 season. Lewes FC, which moved to 100% supporter ownership in 2010 after teetering on the brink of bankruptcy as a privately owned club, have used the community energy model piloted by their local Transition group to install solar panels on their south stand roof. In March 2012 the installation started generating electricity as well as income for the club and supporters. FC United are looking for community groups to work with on the installation of solar panels at their new ground. And they’re currently building relationships with local, organic producers as an alternative to major long distance suppliers.
“Perhaps the most extraordinary example of fan power is Barcelona, whose 170,000 members own and operate the club” But if the news from FC United of Manchester, Lewes and Exeter is hopeful, the reality is that the cooperative model has yet to penetrate the upper echelons of British football. The highest placed supporter-owned team in UK football is Brentford FC in League One (two steps down from the Premiership). We’re far behind Europe in this sense, probably because football
teams are considered to be sporting associations rather than businesses in most European countries. German law stipulates that supporters have to own at least 51% of a club’s shares. But perhaps the most extraordinary example of fan power is Barcelona, whose 170,000 members own and operate the club. That doesn’t stop ‘Barca’ from being phenomenally successful, both on and off the field. They’re the world’s second-richest football club in terms of revenue, with an annual turnover of 400 million euros. There’s clearly scope for growth in the number of fan-owned teams in the UK, especially in the current economic climate. And if that happens, then it makes sense to exploit the obvious synergies between Transition initiatives and co-operative football teams, both of which serve the interests of community members not profitdriven shareholders. Interestingly, it’s been suggested that if UK football supporters register their clubs as “community assets”, then, under the 2011 Localism Act, they would have first buying rights if the clubs are put up for sale. At last – someone’s found a use for what must be one of the most confusing and lightweight pieces of legislation to emerge from the British government in recent years! Jonny Gordon-Farleigh is the Editor of Stir Magazine (www.stirtoaction.com), an online magazine that promotes cooperatives and community-orientated alternatives to the mainstream, and a member of Transition Town Kingston.
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