There's a new site http://www.myfootballclub.co.uk/ where fans are going to buy an English team, they will also vote on team selection and what players to buy and sell. Cambridge is most voted for team so far.
A rather bizarre idea and no doubt doomed to failure. It would be hated by fans of the club picked. What manager would want to work for them? How would finances be handled? Also a rather optomistic selection of clubs. A Step 1 or 2 club might be feasible with major alterations, especially those currently enduring some financial hardship. But Arsenal are a little out of the bracket available. The criteria include a club which has to be capable of reaching the Premiership? Well technically any can, but more realistically, a lot more than £1.4million is going to be needed to do that.
Perhaps it's David Dein's cunning plan to take control of Arsenal. I think it would be possible for a group like this to take over an underperforming club sort them out financially, get promoted and then sell for a profit, but the idea of reaching the Premiership is farfetched.
It seems like a novel concept that will certainly fail. If we look past that how exactly could that sort of arrangement handle relagation/promotion? It seems like a billion problems would arise if they did so.
I remember seeing something a year or two ago on ESPN or somewhere about a minor league baseball team doing this same thing. Thought it was kind of cool, but the manager hated it. The fans voted for the 3rd baseman to play Shortstop, the batting order was crazy, and other stuff. Haven't hard anything about, may try to google it and see if I can find anything out. But the hell, I'll sign up !
Oh my God could you imagine if this happened to your club? On the bright side they currently have 250 of the 50,000 needed and I can't see anyone wanting to pay £35 to own 1/50000 of of Fisher Athletic.... Maybe if a club was failing financially and in the very lower leagues this would be viable but if these goons think that offering £1,375,000 to make a financially stable club a joke then they're daft.
I read about it in Sports Illustrated. You could vote on the Internet to decide who would play where. So the opposition stuffed the ballot box, and they wound up with players at positions they had never played before.
Thing is with this one is that the people who vote are the "owners" of the club so they'll be voting for the best players and team available, it's the genuine fans of the club who I feel terrible for. It's a great bussiness idea for the guy running it. £7.50 costs, £7.50 X 50,000 = £375,000 he stands to make from this.
I think its a great idea. Brentford would be an excellent choice; London club, new manager, just been relegated. I might be up for it. I have little doubt that they will raise the money.
How does an IPS even work? Do you even have a real share in perpetuity, or do you have to pay an annual fee still in order to "own" a share of the team?
I have been looking into putting my money in this idea recently but a lot of people who I tell about it think its all just a scam. What would you say are the possibilities of it actually not being a scam?
I don't think it's a scam as such, but I think it is just a get rich quick scheme for the guy, I'd love to be proved wrong and everything. £7.50 for expeses from 50,000 people is well over £300,000 for the man running it. I worry it's not a realistic model for running a football club myself and the owner may or may not know this and people signing up won't realise until there money has gone. If it is a working model and if the guy doing it doesn't go sloppy after pocketing £300,000 (he may not as more people will naturally get involved once it's a success) and the club bought actually wants to get bought as I'm sure an awful lot wouldn't this might just work. But personally I wouldn't consider parting with any cash until you see the results from other people doing it.
New article out there: http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0608/p01s03-woeu.html?page=1 And the registered member list is up to 33,629. Anyone know where I can find out which baseball team tried this in the USA?
It was the Schaumburg Flyers of the independent Northern League. http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/07/12/whos_on_first_its_your_call/
Its an interesting idea. If wealthy businessmen can buy clubs & make a name for themselves by owning a football club - why not a group of fans? Im not 100% convinced that this has been done with the correct motives behind it - but its worth a try. If you have shares in a club you are very interested to seeit succeed, BUT I have a feeling that one person will end up running the whole thing - I hope Im proved wrong.
That wealthy businessman doesn't, generally, interfere with team selection and tactics. They leave that role to the manager. Of course a few can be overly interfering. Groups of fans do control some clubs (e.g. Bournemouth, Exeter), often financially rescuing the side. However, again these also leave the first team matters to their appointed manager. And of course the fans involved are as a rule long standing followers of the club, and should be more likely to go on from year to year.
Shit. After the 50,000 members were confirmed the table looks like this. <LI class=columnBlue>1 Leeds United 2 Cambridge United <LI class=columnBlue>3 Nottingham Forest 4 Accrington Stanley <LI class=columnBlue>5 Barnet 6 Brighton <LI class=columnBlue>7 Brentford 8 QPR <LI class=columnBlue>9 Torquay United 10 Woking <LI class=columnBlue>11 York City 12 Dagenham & Redbridge <LI class=columnBlue>13 Oxford United 14 Halifax Town <LI class=columnBlue>15 Milton Keynes Dons Take out the unrealistic teams and I make us 4th on that list, jesus christ I realise how awful an idea this is now, apparently 2 conference clubs and a league 2 club have contacted the owner with a view to buying. I prey it's not us, this is a scary time for all lower league fans who sweat, preying it's not their club that gets ruined by a bunch of Football Manager addicts. Whichever club is taken over it will not be a popular choice and the fans will NEVER accept this as the owner.