Tribute English

[VIDEO] Why the Dream of Fan Ownership Will Never Die

Despite numerous false starts in recent years, the fantasy of grassroots ownership in football has refused to go quietly into the night. Here’s why.

The short answer: because it is the fans who buy the tickets. Photo by Valentin B. Kremer on Unsplash.

Fan ownership of football clubs, the ultimate level of fandom, is not solely an attractive idea for fans basking in reflected glory or armchair managers who spend an inordinate amount of time on Football Manager. In a time of seemingly back-to-back financial scandals and surprise bankruptcies, and with the most well-funded clubs helmed by unquestionable and opaque leadership, the notion that fans can have a say in everything from spending to transfers is perhaps even more exciting than any national referendum.

Which is saying a lot since the last one was such a heap of fun. Photo by Sandro Cenni on Unsplash.

In reality, fan ownership is usually only explored as a means of keeping beloved and historically significant clubs from going extinct.

Winning isn’t easy, especially for clubs without a lot of money to throw around. Sometimes winning means having to wine and dine a headlining player into a transfer. Other times, it means having to sell their rights to unknown parties. In the meantime, clubs have to hike prices up to offset the costs of keeping their prima donnas on board.

“I’m sad – when I don’t celebrate goals it’s because I’m not happy.” Also because sometimes I have to pay taxes and play against Iceland too.

Once that streak ends, endangered clubs will have to hope that there’s enough love left over for everyone’s wages to be paid, and that the names that draw crowds stick around long enough for a return from relegation. The inevitable downward spiral begins as disillusionment sets in, exacerbated by lacklustre performances and extortionate prices, and finally ends in administration amid crippling debt.

That’s usually when the fans get involved. 


As in the case of AFC Wimbledon, sometimes new clubs are created by fans as a form of protest. But typically, it is the clubs on the verge of financial obliteration and heavily discounted by virtue of being at the bottom of the pyramid that could conceivably be bought over, share by share by the everyman.

Beneath that banner are several thousand fans who can’t see anything but they would gladly chip in some money to keep their team alive. Photo by Bancada 018 on Unsplash.

These supporter buyouts are generally accomplished with capital concentrated through trusts and community benefit societies to secure governance of a club through majority ownership, or in the case of registered associations, with membership made available to any concerned member of the general public in exchange for a reasonable fee.

Clubs like Real Madrid C.F. and FC Barcelona, which are regarded as bastions of social and cultural identity as much as football clubs, are now counted among the world’s most valuable. Others, by the grace of community support and the will of fan owners, continue to survive only to perpetually fly under the radar. Even fewer in number successfully complete the proverbial rise from ashes to inspire documentaries with orchestral soundtracks Swansea City A.F.C. is one of the most notable examples.


But with adequate funding to compete being a perennial problem for supporter-owned clubs, many of these hopeful experiments simply end up getting stalled, with smaller fan bases confined to minority ownership upon the arrival of big money bringing club management back under the purview of opaque interests. But that’s simply what to expect under free-market conditions.

Why’d your team colours change from blue to red? Because capitalism.

In some places, commercial ownership is banned.

Argentina and Germany are two famously football-mad nations that treat football clubs very differently and it certainly makes for some interesting results. Through concerted regulatory changes over the decades, both Argentina and Germany now stand as ideal case studies of what can happen when the football is made more about the football and less about the money games.

Argentina is the world’s second most prolific exporter of football talent, but that could be attributed to the fact that the Primera División only permits football clubs to operate as registered non-profit civil associations. Beyond the borders of this isolated experiment, capitalism spurs the migration of players in search of bigger paydays in neighbouring Latin American nations such as Chile and Bolivia, or abroad, to Mexico, Spain, and Italy.

Some of you might be familiar with this fellow from back in the day.

Some of those expatriates have gone on to become household names. Even while playing on foreign soil, their appearances bring fame to their country of origin and reinforce the idea that Argentina is in the habit of producing footballing machines. And despite the monetary lure pulling some of their brightest stars to other parts of the world, Argentinian football fans remain among the most devoted.


Germany is another model example of regulation in favour of fan-ownership. The Bundesliga provides what many fans would call a wholesome football experience — at prices that are among Europe’s most affordable. As a result, even clubs in the second-division Bundesliga can boast respectable attendance numbers that are on par with some of Europe’s most celebrated brands.

With the beloved (or dreaded) 50+1 rule on the books since 1998, only a few commercially owned clubs remain in the Bundesliga. Some of these clubs were grandfathered in via a lengthy history of association with, or support in excess of 20 years from, a corporation such as Bayer (Bayer Leverkusen) and Volkswagen (VfL Wolfsburg). Other recently attempted intrusions, such as one particular corporation represented by a crimson bovine, have been met with a more than palpable resistance from fans.


There are some disadvantages, of course.

Unlike privately owned clubs or limited liability companies, community-owned clubs cannot raise funds through a stock-market flotation or a capital injection, only through expanding the membership base or increasing revenue. This works out to be of a disadvantage to smaller clubs which may lack the necessary supporter numbers and may be forced to enact some cost-cutting (and performance-damaging) measures as a result.

A significant aspect of preserving profit involves selling off expensive talent and signing bargain players, which tends to leave community-owned clubs with lesser-known players. Without the performances or names to generate high attendance or the necessary momentum for promotion — cash-starved clubs inexorably fall down the same downward spiral from waning relevance to complete obscurity.


When the limitation of affordable players affects the whole league, the assumption is that there would be a fairly equitable distribution of similarly priced talent across teams. But the Bundesliga, as a notable example, lacks the dynamic flavour of the EPL. While the EPL has a different champion almost every year, the Bundesliga resembles a two-party system with Bayern München reigning for the larger half of the last decade.

In some cases, the pursuit of inclusivity in football also suffers, especially when one particular ideology dominates the fan base as was (allegedly) the case (once upon a time) with Hamburger SV. But fan ownership is the double-edged sword that also gives voice to other sentiments in the community, as with Hamburger SV’s inter-city rivals, the “Kult” FC St. Pauli — which now makes for one of Germany’s most contentious derbies.


The infectious sense of delight that comes with being a fan is amplified and transformed into something even more profound when a beloved club is owned, even in some small part, by the fans  — which kind of begs the question: What makes for quality football, a league where money speaks the loudest, a level playing field for all, or a mixture of both flavours?

Kevin Eichenberger can’t stand punk rock and has never been to Hamburg, but he would gladly kick it mit den Freibeutern der Liga.