The concept of a fan owned club

[LeedsCityRam]

Just now, Coconut said:

Didn't realise that, thanks. Looks like I'm wrong. 

I would imagine it could only be successful if you start from pretty far down though, or with a blank slate financially.

There's also a pretty large disparity between funding a League One club and a Championship club?

Fair comment re funding of a League One club v Championship club but returning to our £30m turnover, that gives a massive advantage over most other clubs at this level. TV money is nowhere near as important at this level so majority of that will be fan buying power & the extent to which PP can accommodate corporate entertainment etc.

Clearly the existing debts at Derby would need factoring in but we don't know what is owed to whom & to what extent Mel would be willing to pay them off/restructure to facilitate an orderly transfer of ownership. I don't doubt his intentions are good, its more whether he has the financial resources to do so. 

[Shaftesbury Street]

24 minutes ago, LeedsCityRam said:

Its an idea that I would really like to see work & totally agree with your points about change in recruitment & the need to sell players to progress. I wouldn't actually see it as a backward step either.

From a financials point of view, we turnover around £30m a year - earnt income in other words. Therefore the gap between the costs of running the club & the £30m is what fans would need to stump up each year. Looking at the 16/17 and 17/18 accounts, that is around £40m and tallies with @Carnero point about GSE having to find circa £10m a season to cover the shortfall back when they ran the club.

So we'd have 2 options really;

1. We continue to run a staff cost of circa £40m assuming that this is the minimum outlay we'd need to be seriously competitive in the division especially from a wages perspective. £10m a season equates to 1000 fans stumping up £10k a season if the club were wholly fan owned. Of course that amount would be diluted if we could have a 50+1 German model, where 49% of the club was owned by businessmen.
2. We insist on a model where costs can never exceed that turnover figure of £30m. This would necessitate a fundamental restructure of the club as you allude to with the Academy becoming an essential route to providing first team players & looking to buy players with potential from lower leagues & improve them. It would also require a long term approach to being successful & a total departure from glamour names, quick fix solutions & a massive dose of fan patience. This would be my preference.

Given the size of the club/fanbase in relation to the rest of the EFL, we are best placed to make something like this work (with the possible exception of Sunderland & maybe Sheff Wednesday). If we looked to adopt option 1, I think we'd need to be realistic about how many fans would be able to fund the club in this way - anything more than 1000 is fanciful & some would even think that many people is too many. 

The other key issue is how to organise ourselves as a fan collective & how to put people with serious talent at the forefront of a fans buyout. Ramstrust would seem an obvious conduit but know there was a lot of factionalism back in 2005/6 when various groups took it upon themselves to unsettle the 3 Amigos & then started claiming credit/abusing other groups when Gadsby et al slung the parasites out.

In summary, yes I think its definitely possible. I will try & do some reading on the ownership structures & stories of AFC Wimbledon, Hearts & the German ownership model to see if there's anything else to glean there. 

That's some really good insight and encouraging that its not a pipe dream for a championship club!

In regards to who would front it, I think it would need to be something fresh with an elected representative each year (or three for consistency).

[Philmycock]

Jesus, imagine if my club is owned by RamsTrust and all the other super fans all racing to be number 1 fan of the year ? 

[angieram]

23 minutes ago, Philmycock said:

Jesus, imagine if my club is owned by RamsTrust and all the other super fans all racing to be number 1 fan of the year ? 

This is my worry. 

Someone mentioned B4 getting into the dressing room at last. Where do you think he's going to get £10,000 a year from? Or me or the vast majority of fans I know who go home and away either! 

So, you say it would be owned "by the fans" but only the more well-heeled ones. I find myself as far away from some of those on what the average fan wants as I do any other owners. 

[RoyMac5]

10 minutes ago, angieram said:

This is my worry. 

Someone mentioned B4 getting into the dressing room at last. Where do you think he's going to get £10,000 a year from? Or me or the vast majority of fans I know who go home and away either! 

So, you say it would be owned "by the fans" but only the more well-heeled ones. I find myself as far away from some of those on what the average fan wants as I do any other owners. 

Way back when (80s?) you could buy shares in the club - for a small sum, they all went when we got bought out by ??? can't remember which owner. My brother had one, so he could go to the AGM's I think it was. So is there a reason why, say £1 shares, couldn't be issued?

[cannable]

2 hours ago, Carnero said:

It wouldn't take £30m a year to run a sensible mid-level championship club, under GSE's final years the net shortfall was around £8m/year which I would require funding. Sensible wage control is the answer to football's financial problems, but just never happens.

Our current wage bill is only £2,000,000 more than in Clough’s last full season as well. 

[Spanish]

5 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

Way back when (80s?) you could buy shares in the club - for a small sum, they all went when we got bought out by ??? can't remember which owner. My brother had one, so he could go to the AGM's I think it was. So is there a reason why, say £1 shares, couldn't be issued?

I wouldn't want to be a registrar with 30k shares to look after, I also wouldn't want to organise an AGM for that number, the concept is that a significant amount is raised so the need to focus on those with the money to make a difference and if you come up short it is a waste of time.  In professional sport money talks of course.  

[RoyMac5]

24 minutes ago, Spanish said:

I wouldn't want to be a registrar with 30k shares to look after, I also wouldn't want to organise an AGM for that number, the concept is that a significant amount is raised so the need to focus on those with the money to make a difference and if you come up short it is a waste of time.  In professional sport money talks of course.  

Technology might help. It was possible before for fans to own one share cheaply, to allow all fans to have that choice, not necessarily to fund the club. I don't think my brother thought he was funding players! What about supermarkets - we've some Tesco shares, we're sent all the AGM bumpf, but we don't actually have that much in value.

Edited May 15, 2021 by RoyMac5

[Spanish]

1 minute ago, RoyMac5 said:

Technology might help. It was possible before for fans to own one share cheaply, to allow all fans to have that choice, not necessarily to fund the club. I don't think my brother thought he was funding players!

It can't be done without technology, but the AGM, the voting.  Don't you think there would be 30,000 shareholders at least?  £30k is no where near enough

[RoyMac5]

Just now, Spanish said:

It can't be done without technology, but the AGM, the voting.  Don't you think there would be 30,000 shareholders at least?  £30k is no where near enough

I was making a suggestion to angieRam that showed a way for all fans if they wanted to feel included. How did it work before? Why couldn't it work now - how do Tesco's or any large company do it? Didn't suggest it as a way to fund the club!

[Spanish]

1 minute ago, RoyMac5 said:

I was making a suggestion to angieRam that showed a way for all fans if they wanted to feel included. How did it work before? Why couldn't it work now - how do Tesco's or any large company do it? Didn't suggest it as a way to fund the club!

tend to think supporters feel the need to have a voice whereas Tesco shareholders are quite so interested in the day to day running of stores, maybe I'm wrong?

[RoyMac5]

1 minute ago, Spanish said:

tend to think supporters feel the need to have a voice whereas Tesco shareholders are quite so interested in the day to day running of stores, maybe I'm wrong?

But you still have a voice - at least that's what my brother said. I'm not sure how it works, but why shouldn't it, I'd think most fans would be happy to go with the majority, but...? 

Edited May 15, 2021 by RoyMac5

[Dean (hick) Saunders]

1 hour ago, angieram said:

This is my worry. 

Someone mentioned B4 getting into the dressing room at last. Where do you think he's going to get £10,000 a year from? Or me or the vast majority of fans I know who go home and away either! 

So, you say it would be owned "by the fans" but only the more well-heeled ones. I find myself as far away from some of those on what the average fan wants as I do any other owners. 

Yes. Thing is you would want to encourage richer fans with cash to put more in (I assume) which then they would reasonably want proportionally more voting shares, then more envy/disharmony ensues.

[RoyMac5]

1 minute ago, Dean (hick) Saunders said:

Yes. Thing is you would want to encourage richer fans with cash to put more in (I assume) which then they would reasonably want proportionally more voting shares, then more envy/disharmony ensues.

Why? 

[Reggie Greenwood]

27 minutes ago, RoyMac5 said:

But you still have a voice - at least that's what my brother said. I'm not sure how it works, but why shouldn't it, I'd think most fans would be happy to go with the majority, but...? 

I bought shares in the early 80’s to help the club and get the agm as well ( think they became worthless when the Co-op pulled the plug but can’t remember ). I was also heavily involved in a fans group that formed to help try to get rid of Maxwell and all the infighting in the board up and including the early days of Lionels ownership until he booted a board member out. 
Had dealings and meetings with certain board members whilst we were useful to them  it was all good then patronised and patted on the head and told to trot along when no longer needed. 
Also as said a few folks were fighting on who should be fan representatives and who shouldn’t. 
So unless things have changed I a rather jaundiced view of how fans on football clubs boards work. 

[RoyMac5]

7 minutes ago, Reggie Greenwood said:

So unless things have changed I a rather jaundiced view of how fans on football clubs boards work. 

I don't imagine for one minute things have changed. I always think back to student union days, hardly anyone ever wanted to run it but we all moaned when they booked crap bands for the Union bar! ? 

[GboroRam]

3 hours ago, Reggie Greenwood said:

The only problem I foresee as on this site so many “fans / supporters/ members “ have differing opinions on the running of the club. Can see getting a consensus very difficult. 
Might have to do a bit more research in how the German clubs do it and how the less successful ones deal with the grumblings of fans 

 

[IslandExile]

34 minutes ago, Reggie Greenwood said:

I bought shares in the early 80’s to help the club and get the agm as well ( think they became worthless when the Co-op pulled the plug but can’t remember ).

Yeah, I think got my share rather than a refund for the season ticket cup vouchers after an early exit.

It was useful because it gave priority booking on tickets, road trips etc.

I was miffed when it went.

[RoyMac5]

6 minutes ago, IslandExile said:

Yeah, I think got my share rather than a refund for the season ticket cup vouchers after an early exit.

It was useful because it gave priority booking on tickets, road trips etc.

I was miffed when it went.

So was my brother! But then he went to the AGMs too.

[LeedsCityRam]

2 hours ago, Shaftesbury Street said:

That's some really good insight and encouraging that its not a pipe dream for a championship club!

In regards to who would front it, I think it would need to be something fresh with an elected representative each year (or three for consistency).

Yes, really good idea regarding an elected representative to lead for a fixed term...democracy allows everyone to get involved & for fresh ideas/perspectives at the top.

2 hours ago, angieram said:

This is my worry. 

Someone mentioned B4 getting into the dressing room at last. Where do you think he's going to get £10,000 a year from? Or me or the vast majority of fans I know who go home and away either! 

So, you say it would be owned "by the fans" but only the more well-heeled ones. I find myself as far away from some of those on what the average fan wants as I do any other owners. 

It's a difficult one & I see your point. Reality is the fan group would need some financial muscle & by making ownership more spread out, it gets the club closer to the fans. With 1000 people, you're more likely to know an part owner & be able to give your opinion directly. 

Should clarify 10k a year would only be necessary if we continued with our current cost model, not if we committed to only spent what we earnt.