Fan Ownership - The Elusive Dream (October, 2010)

With debts spiralling out of control amongst England’s top clubs, is now the time for fans to take control, or does fan ownership remain as far away as ever?

The Green and Gold campaign staged earlier this year by Manchester United fans bent on unseating the despised Glazers was a bold, defiant statement. Whilst, for now, the protest has muted, those heady Spring months when revolution was thick in the Old Trafford air pose a question - will we ever see fan ownership in the Premier League?

At both ends of the East Lancs road, two of football’s fiercest rivals find themselves with a common concern. The reds of Manchester and Liverpool are, well, firmly in the red, with respective American ownerships crippling two of the county’s most prestigious sporting establishments.

Liverpool fans are waiting to see if the despised Hicks and Gillett will finally relinquish control of the club, and sell to New England Sports Ventures (NESV), or possibly a late rival bid from Singapore. If not, the daunting prospect of possible administration casts a gloomy shadow over Anfield.

NESV’s GBP300 million bid is promised to leave the club debt-free, yet even so, would such a buyout really be a positive outcome? Liverpool’s Supporter’s union, Spirit of Shankly, say their ultimate goal is ‘Supporter ownership of Liverpool Football Club’. But surely, if the keys to the Shankly gates are handed over to another American, this dream is as far away as it ever has been?

Fan ownership in the Premiership is often seen as unthinkable. Certainly, a match-going Liverpool fan I spoke to views the very notion unfeasible, given the size and heritage of the club. But surely, it would be better to risk a potentially fragile fan ownership rather than watch mercenary businessmen destroy the very history the club is built upon?

Fan ownership has, and can work – a key example is FC Barcelona, where over 150,000 ‘Socios’ pay a membership fee and in return have a say in who is running their club. An admirable and effective system of controlling club ownership comes in the German Bundesliga, where the ‘50+1’ rule stipulates 51% of all teams must be owned by club members – allowing considerable investment opportunity, yet preventing private businesses from taking overall control of a club.

On our own shores however, fan ownership remains a tantalising, highly romantic prospect that is unattainable – in the short term at least. Initiatives like that of the Red Knights - the group of bankers and other rich fans who want to takeover Manchester United – will struggle to prosper whilst they remain faced by the incessant greed of the current establishment.

As for Liverpool, the short-term is likely to be dominated by legal wranglings. The long term looks like an endless cycle of ricocheting from one mercenary owner to another.  It will be a long time before a fan sits in the Anfield boardroom.