Barrel of Fun
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I am hard of hearing, so it is useless without subtitles. Sorry. I should have explained.
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Atilla The Stockbroker
- Thread starter JonathanLivingstonSeagull
- Start date
I am hard of hearing, so it is useless without subtitles. Sorry. I should have explained.
Right, sorry. Sort of...
Football is in a bad way. Clubs should not be owned by a single individual but by the fans and the community in which they sit.
(Which is the complete opposite to our own club)
Football is in a bad way. Clubs should not be owned by a single individual but by the fans and the community in which they sit.
(Which is the complete opposite to our own club)
Bevendean Hillbilly
New member
Pavilionaire
Well-known member
- Jul 7, 2003
- 31,107
I agree with the broad thrust of what Attila says about the rich money men ultimately destroying football, but saying clubs need to be some sort of socialist collective utopia is political idealism gone mad.
What's needed is a regulatory framework that is enforced. Other sports have a franchise system or salary cap, a draft where the weaker teams get first choice of the best youngsters coming through. Whilst I'm not advocating all of that for football some sort of salary cap would bring a certain amount of levelling of the playing field.
The problem is football has been left to the market. However, you wonder whether a future development might be that the top men recognise the danger signs and start changing the sport for the better, outside of the bodies such as the Premier League or FIFA.
This week we've seen an unbelievable stance taken by FIFA on goalline technology. Yet I honestly believe if Abramovich, the Glazers, Moratti, Laporta and a few others at the top signed an accord it would force FIFA's hand.
What's needed is a regulatory framework that is enforced. Other sports have a franchise system or salary cap, a draft where the weaker teams get first choice of the best youngsters coming through. Whilst I'm not advocating all of that for football some sort of salary cap would bring a certain amount of levelling of the playing field.
The problem is football has been left to the market. However, you wonder whether a future development might be that the top men recognise the danger signs and start changing the sport for the better, outside of the bodies such as the Premier League or FIFA.
This week we've seen an unbelievable stance taken by FIFA on goalline technology. Yet I honestly believe if Abramovich, the Glazers, Moratti, Laporta and a few others at the top signed an accord it would force FIFA's hand.
Stumpy Tim
Well-known member
I'm a member of that bunch who bought Ebsfleet. They now can't pay wages & are talking about issuing more shares, so cutting back the percentage that the members actually own. Sounds like "community clubs" don't work.
Jimmy Grimble
Well-known member
Last edited:
Pavilionaire
Well-known member
- Jul 7, 2003
- 31,107
Ebbsfleet average 1,006 fans per match. They play Luton shortly, who've told Fleet to expect 1,500 - 2,000 Hatters fans. So Ebbsfleet face playing at home but being outnumbered 2-1...by Luton.
It doesn't sound as though the MyFC idea has really caught on...
It doesn't sound as though the MyFC idea has really caught on...
Stumpy Tim
Well-known member
Can't fault the passion of Atilla, but couple of things I have to comment on.
One has been spoken about above. How can you complain about the moneymen taking over & wanting all clubs to be owned by the community, and then take such pleasure in one man (whether he's a fan or not) bankrolling the club? That's double standards in my book. Not in the same vein as the Glaziers, or Arabs who took over at City, or Russians at Chelsea I admit, but it's still one person taking over the club.
The second thing was the complaint that "fans are now just being treated like customers". I for one am massively thankful we're treated as customers. I can now go to a ground where I'm not penned in by fences & barbed wire. I can go to a ground & realistically expect to come home without bricks & coins being thrown at me. I LIKE being a customer.
One has been spoken about above. How can you complain about the moneymen taking over & wanting all clubs to be owned by the community, and then take such pleasure in one man (whether he's a fan or not) bankrolling the club? That's double standards in my book. Not in the same vein as the Glaziers, or Arabs who took over at City, or Russians at Chelsea I admit, but it's still one person taking over the club.
The second thing was the complaint that "fans are now just being treated like customers". I for one am massively thankful we're treated as customers. I can now go to a ground where I'm not penned in by fences & barbed wire. I can go to a ground & realistically expect to come home without bricks & coins being thrown at me. I LIKE being a customer.
Lyndhurst 14
Well-known member
- Jan 16, 2008
- 5,202
Anyone know if, by any chance, this is available in any other format for those of us outside the UK as the BBC iplayer is off limits to us. Thanks
Stumpy Tim
Well-known member
Go to Post 1, and click that link. It worked for me in Australia
Vankleek Hill Seagull
Well-known member
People like the Glazers are in it for the money. Allegedly, him and each of his offspring take out an annual "management fee" if £1.5 million which comes directly out of the clubs finances along with the interest charges on the debt he used to buy the club. Thereby they profit out of the club quite handsomely.
With Tony Bloom, we have a third generation family supporter of the club who has put his hand in his own pocket to pay for the new stadium. This is an interest free loan which is to be paid back over a certain number of years. Tony Bloom is not profiting from owning and being chairman of the club.
That's the difference, but Attila didn't differentiate between the two different types of rich owners.
But is Ebbsfleet really a "community club"? It's not owned by Ebbsfield supporters it's owned by people who bought a share in it. It's no different from the clubs who became PLCs being bought by institutional stockholders - just a different scale.
I thought it was top ranting by John and he's absolutely right that football is in serious trouble and "is going to eat itself" as he put it but Pavilionaire's right, these clubs aren't about to become socialist co-operatives: not now, not any time.
We look back to how things were done in the past and fans probably had even less say than they do now. Clubs were run by successful local businessmen, often with no feel for football, who ran clubs on their personal whim and whose autocratic approach meant little argument.
Things aren't right now but what's needed is better regulation. For example, club ownership should be totally transparent; salaries shouldn't exceed a certain level of turnover (say 80%), no-one should be allowed to buy unless putting up more than 50% of the cost - ie no using debt for purchase. I'd also like to see mandatory that there should be an elected supporter on the board of every club.
I'd like to see clubs run like Barcelona too, but it isn't going to happen and we need to fix what we've got.
Stumpy Tim
Well-known member
It's the closest thing to a community club in the UK though, and it's failed really. Bournemouth tried the community owning the club too - and that was a disaster. These things don't work I'm afraid
I'd say Ebbsfleet is probably furthest from a community club in the UK. It's owned by thousands of people, virtually none of whom have roots or links in the local community.
Bournemouth is more interesting example but I don't think that the fans' ownership caused their financial woes - they had some deep-seated problems. Isn't there some fans' involvement in Chesterfield too?
Stumpy Tim
Well-known member
Yes, but it is owned by football fans instead of money men... which is what Atilla was complaining about
But is it though?
if you read the thread about Ebbsfleet you'll see that out of 27,000 original investors, just 800 have renewed their membership this year - that doesn't exactly sound like committed football fans to me.
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 35,851
has to say i turned off the stream once he started gushing about our single rich albiet local fan whos bought the club. seemed at odds with all said before.
it s a nice idea, all the community owning the club. but then communism was a good idea, and look how that went. i dont say that lightly either, its related, commonly owned entities usually go wrong, too many opinions and input. where would the money come from for our stadium? where would the money come from for the good players? Football has never been about profit, always being proped up by some wealthy local. some businessman have recently caught sight of it and think they can run businesses, most are finding the hard way that there is usually a fat loss. I think some do get it, ironically the Abramovich and rich Arabs who do get that a football club is a play thing for the rich and pump in cash accordingly.
anyway if you want a possible solution to what happend to us and the ground, and to avoid Glazier types, i reckon the answer is to seperate the club and the ground. i wrote about this idea here a couple of days ago, not a single reply so that probably a shite idea. but its certainly more likly change than simply passing all clubs into community ownership.
it s a nice idea, all the community owning the club. but then communism was a good idea, and look how that went. i dont say that lightly either, its related, commonly owned entities usually go wrong, too many opinions and input. where would the money come from for our stadium? where would the money come from for the good players? Football has never been about profit, always being proped up by some wealthy local. some businessman have recently caught sight of it and think they can run businesses, most are finding the hard way that there is usually a fat loss. I think some do get it, ironically the Abramovich and rich Arabs who do get that a football club is a play thing for the rich and pump in cash accordingly.
anyway if you want a possible solution to what happend to us and the ground, and to avoid Glazier types, i reckon the answer is to seperate the club and the ground. i wrote about this idea here a couple of days ago, not a single reply so that probably a shite idea. but its certainly more likly change than simply passing all clubs into community ownership.
I think sadly you may be right. I too would LOVE to see all clubs run on the 'Barcelona' model (or the Green Bay Packers in the NFL) where the club is owned by the community, but I can't see it happening any time soon (I'd also like to see the railways re-nationalised and all essential goods and services in public ownership but I guess I'm going to have to wait for that too!).
I have some personal experience of community ownership as for several years I was a shareholder at Bradford (Park Avenue), the idea being that the club would be owned and financed by locals and a few wierdos like me who remembered them from their days as a League club. Unfortunately it didn't work. The club could never generate enough money to be even a semi-decent non-league side, and a few times it looked as if they might fold again. They were saved when a local businessman (a builder called Bob Blackburn) took over the club and financed it himself. No longer are there perennial worries about players' wages and fund-raising campaigns to refurbish the tea bar - Bob just gets it done. The result of Bob's investment is that the Avenue are currently top of the Unibond Premier and crowds have doubled.
So whilst it is true that, by and large, the 'community club' concept hasn't really taken off in Britain (and it wasn't the way football developed in this country anyway) I do agree with Atilla and disagree with Beach Hut that there is a WORLD of difference between being funded by a lifelong fan and being funded by a foreign investor who's just picked your club on a whim; saying "it's still money" is a bit like saying that buying bread is the same as buying drugs. Having Tony Bloom fund Falmer is only an extended version of Bob Blackburn funding the Avenue, and it maintains the time-honoured tradition of clubs being bankrolled by wealthy but altrusitic local individuals.
Stumpy Tim
Well-known member
You've added the word "committed" to suit your argument there! I've never said they were committed - but I think they were all football fans (not necessarily Ebsfleet fans) Also, it's 800 this month (out of an orginal 4-5000), not 800 out of the original 27,000 I think
I don't think any of the 27,000 original participants can be classified as investors. The word investor suggests they were expecting to make a return - which was never the point.
jezzer
Active member
Just because Attilas assertions are somewhat idealistic doesnt make them wrong, the barcelona scenario is the perfect scenario as it can never lead to what happened to us at the goldstone and other clubs, thats the point he`s making.
As for double standards, he, im sure, would have loved the fans to own the albion, but he can also, in the absence of that scenario, be immensely happy as we all are, to have mr bloom pay for the new stadium because his intentions, unlike some previous incumbants, are honourable and also be excrutiatingly happy that we are moving out of withdean.
Whats wrong with that? Nothing, and i for one would never switch off anyone gushing about the new stadium and leaving withdean, weve earnt that havent we?
P.S Doesnt he look like Catweazle!!
As for double standards, he, im sure, would have loved the fans to own the albion, but he can also, in the absence of that scenario, be immensely happy as we all are, to have mr bloom pay for the new stadium because his intentions, unlike some previous incumbants, are honourable and also be excrutiatingly happy that we are moving out of withdean.
Whats wrong with that? Nothing, and i for one would never switch off anyone gushing about the new stadium and leaving withdean, weve earnt that havent we?
P.S Doesnt he look like Catweazle!!