Hi, first time poster, don't be too harsh! anyway, i was looking at Barcelona when i saw hat they were owned by some sort of fans cooperative, why dont we oust mike ashley by putting togethers a fans bid? if all 52,000 people that fill the stadium week after week put the price of a season ticket, and i am sure that some fans could pay more, we could raise enough money to have the fans run the club! does anyone else think this would be a good idea, some sort of pay what you can scheme for ownership back in the fans hands?
Hello . This has been brought up before and while it would be a good idea, similar has been tried I think - and it failed pretty miserably. As far as I'm aware, most supporters groups that get set up tend to be led by people so insanely pissed off with Ashley that they Ahab their way to failure.
How much is a season ticket? If 52,000 fans put in £1000 each that's £52,000,000. I've got no idea how financially viable that is to be honest, don't know enough about it. The club would have to be turning a profit or at least break even to be sustainable whereas Mike can take loans from his other businesses on our behalf if necessary. Welcome anyway.
To what end? For a start that wouldn't even generate the asking price and then you've got to pay more for wages, transfer fees etc etc, unless you manage to run the club at a profit which is what Mike Ashley is trying to do anyway. Fact is football is a billionaires game these days, and the 52,000 (less the empty seats, less the away fans) don't have the money to own and run a successful Premiership club. I know for a fact I can't afford more than what I already pay for my season ticket, so thats another one to knock off.
This! Barcelona are an ideal model, but not one that we could follow. Barcelona ARE Catalan, they're fiercly proud of their identity, language culture and region. They have a huge reputation, a stadium twice the size of ours and a fan base 100x ours!
Barcelona are over £300m in debt. I'll happily take having a wealthy businessman in charge who is whipping our finances into shape over struggling to get by with fans fronting the money and being in control, despite not being able to agree on the simplest of matters).
Would definitely end up like this...and then as there wouldn't be a billionaire playboy/sheikh/businessman behind it all the club would have to be run in exactly the same way as it is now in order for it to function 'cos the fans won't be able to pay out of their own pockets for transfers and for redevelopments etc.
Welcome! This was quite the topic of debate on the old forum, especially just before/when we were relegated. Good one for your first post mate! Something you'd need to bare in mind is that Barca are also listed as a charity so with spanish law the gov are required to bail them out when they mess up! There was actually an initiative to get this going where you give up your pension (or something like that) - may be worth looking up for interests sake. Anywho, it's not really a viable option and if it were, then a mistake or two could cost us the whole club all together. Plus would you really want to turn the club to shares in the current climate?
Yeah people always say 52k - there's probably more than double or possibly even treble that around the world. Just because they can't get to games doesn't mean they're not a fan. Would cost me much more than a ST for each game and I'm not even that far away really
closest we'll ever get to this is setting up a fanshare similar to arsenal's and gaining enough support perhaps 20% of the club could be fan owned. anything more owuld be dreaming imo. of course, to do this the club needs to be put up for shares
If Ashley still wants £100 million for the club then we'd need to be paying just under 2 grand each, including all the kids at the games who dont have that between them. Barca have an insanely huge global fanbase that we cant match, and whenever we need to sign a new striker, we'd have to get thousands of people to discuss it and then have a whip round to pay the fee.
Didn't the fans raise £60m when we went down but Ashley wouldn't accept? Obviously with the club being where it is he'd probably want well in excess of £200m now. Don't get the people saying you can only pay transfer fees if you have a billionaire owner. Most clubs are largely self sufficient and don't require cash injections to survive, the entire German football league is fan owned. Obviously we couldn't outspend Man City if the fans owned the club, but that isn't going to happen anyway so I fail to see why that's considered a valid argument against. The club would've turned a tidy profit last year if the club had included player sales in the end of year figures and if Ashley had actually paid for the advertising he has all over the ground. And that's without people boycotting the club in protest, and companies such as Adidas refusing to deal with him. This club can easily generate the funds to be solidly in the top half and pushing for Europe.