Fans to buy English club and then pick the team

Discussion in 'Other Divisions' started by HeMustScore!, Apr 27, 2007.

  1. Leedsunited

    Leedsunited Member

    Jun 14, 2007
    Yorkshire
    Club:
    Leeds United AFC
    EDIT: See post above, its virtually what I said.

    All clubs to my knowledge has this kind of thing anyway: The supporters trust. These often position themselves to buy the club, especially when they are in financial difficulties. Its nothing new and I find it hard to see how they could provide future cash injections. They may get a lot of new members when they announce which club is going to be taken over, from that clubs fans.
     
  2. bdndyc

    bdndyc New Member

    Apr 14, 2007
    More likely they'll get death threats and abuse.

    I see now how horrible an idea it is, it will completely ruin the whole ethos of a club for a bunch of computer geeks entertainment.

    Honestly I think the owner will take the fees, take his admin fees, bung the rest into a high interesnt bank account for a while then offer refunds and keep the interest.
     
  3. act smiley

    act smiley Member

    Feb 8, 2005
    Cardiff
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    Nah, if you look at it carefully, if he can keep the club in existance and stable, he'll be earning £250,000+ for life. Of course, what with trying to let everyone take such a great degree of control its doomed to failure, at which point he's entirely in profit and its everyone else who loses out.
     
  4. leg_breaker

    leg_breaker Member

    Dec 23, 2005
    Great idea. Collect £1.75 million in subscriptions. Spend two years or so finding a team to buy, whilst the bank account goes up to £1.93m with interest, then announce the scheme has failed, give each person back the £35 minus £7.50 'costs', and walk away with £375,000 in 'costs' and £144,000 in interest, for a total profit of £519,000. Not bad just for opening a website.
     
  5. SoccerPrime

    SoccerPrime Moderator
    Staff Member

    All of them
    Apr 14, 2003
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Sounds like to me that EA may end up running and owning the club.
     
  6. act smiley

    act smiley Member

    Feb 8, 2005
    Cardiff
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    Nah. They'll just spend a little bit on sponsorship while the team is famous, then when everyone forgets about it, pull the plug leaving them financially unstable and unable to cope because the fans will have thrown all their investment into signings and forgetting everything else they have to pay for.


    Obviously, they've had to hire a legal team and so on, but how much would those kind of costs really run to - I mean, what's to stop everyone running one of these things?
     
  7. Leedsunited

    Leedsunited Member

    Jun 14, 2007
    Yorkshire
    Club:
    Leeds United AFC
    It would be interesting to see them pass the 'Fit and Proper Persons Test'.








    Mind you dodgy, thieving, asset stripping, mate employing, tax dodging scumbag Ken Bates got through it again.
     
  8. act smiley

    act smiley Member

    Feb 8, 2005
    Cardiff
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    Of course they'll pass it - they've got a bunch of well meaning but probably liable to self destruct the club investors but have hired people who know what they're doing to advise. I'm actually suprised by the degree to which this has been thought out - its more than the chatting in the pub idea it seemed at first.

    I wonder how possible this would be to do at a lower level, and what the various costs and behind the scenes issues are. To be honest, as dodgy as it is for the fans of whoever they buy, I find it fascinating.
     
  9. st mirren till i die

    Jul 14, 2007
    Glasgow
    Club:
    Saint Mirren FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Scotland
    Clad it's not my club :)

    The fans better be prepared to say FC'UM when it happens.
     
  10. act smiley

    act smiley Member

    Feb 8, 2005
    Cardiff
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    So, I know everyone's probably got bored of talking about this, but I was wondering - people's objections on here are largely from the "real life football manager game" aspect of team selection, would you consider something like this to be positive if that aspect was removed, or would you still have reservations about it?
     
  11. Leedsunited

    Leedsunited Member

    Jun 14, 2007
    Yorkshire
    Club:
    Leeds United AFC
    Still have reservations, as to where future investment and capital would come from. Also the fact that the club would be run by people who couldn't care less about the outcome of their decisions. Ridiculous idea.
     
  12. act smiley

    act smiley Member

    Feb 8, 2005
    Cardiff
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    Still better than Ken Bates though, surely :p
    I can see where you're coming from with that - I came up with a similar idea to this in one of those pub conversations last year, but a friend managed to convince me it would never work - now, even if it has issues in the long term when people forget about it, this guy's gone and made a six figure sum from it!
    You don't think a high enough proportion of people would renew their membership this time next year for it to remain viable, or are you talking long-term rather than in the immediate next couple of years? Cause I can see the point that 5 years down the line when the novelty's worn off, a lot of people won't bother but I'd have thought that there'd have been people who'd maybe not want to join until it had been proven stable who would keep the numbers from dropping too dramatically, although that obviously is a big issue with this kind of thing.
     
  13. Leedsunited

    Leedsunited Member

    Jun 14, 2007
    Yorkshire
    Club:
    Leeds United AFC
    Probably not, at least Cuddly Ken knows how to shaft the taxman and the rest of the Football League and get away scot-free!
    I meant more that the novelty would wear thin pretty quickly. If you want to manage a club, you buy Football Manager. I suppose it may work for a couple of seasons, but at this rate they would struggle to buy and finance a team in the Conference North, they would need a million subscribers to buy Leeds!
     
  14. act smiley

    act smiley Member

    Feb 8, 2005
    Cardiff
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    They've got the money to buy a conference or league two side if they don't expect to have much left over for investing in the squad for the first year, but I think the issue is that long term stability depends on the ability of those involved to create a financial structure whereby the club would be sustainable if the amount of members backing it dropped to about 5. And well, the average person chucking £35 at it for a laugh wouldn't be the kind to do that - if they keep it to the gimmicky stuff and let that consultant they've got have the real control they might do ok, if it weren't for the fact that they're going to run into trouble with the pick-the-team thing.
     
  15. Leedsunited

    Leedsunited Member

    Jun 14, 2007
    Yorkshire
    Club:
    Leeds United AFC
    Bit like buying a plot on the moon? If the gimmick lasts a season or two I'd be surprised.
     
  16. Jacqueline87

    Jacqueline87 Red Card

    Aug 9, 2007
    kensington london
    Hello i am zippy and cannot do a thread cos an unjust yellow card, i want to do a thread but you need to do so many posts first, so i looked for the least popular forum to do lots in, you could call it art i suppose :)

    Sorry to anyone who this will annoy

    Moderator please delete them
     
  17. Jacqueline87

    Jacqueline87 Red Card

    Aug 9, 2007
    kensington london
    vsdvsv
    Hello i am zippy and cannot do a thread cos an unjust yellow card, i want to do a thread but you need to do so many posts first, so i looked for the least popular forum to do lots in, you could call it art i suppose :)

    Sorry to anyone who this will annoy

    Moderator please delete them
     
  18. bdndyc

    bdndyc New Member

    Apr 14, 2007
    To be honnest I don't think the FA will allow this, I hope not anyway.

    How dare the owners of this thing claim it's for the "ordinary football fan" ? Ordinary football fans already support a club and would be horrified at the idea of 50,000 computer geeks picking the team.

    I'm sure there are smaller clubs who are never going to get anywhere who would like the attention and celebrity status this would bring but the owner seems to want a League 2/Conference side which is disgusting.

    A better idea would be to use the money to start up a new club at the bottom of the pyramid. No one has their club ruined, the team they own truly is their own and when it goes tits up they haven't destroyed something people care about.

    But of course they won't do this cos they're too wrapped up in the idea that they're the "ordinary football fan" whenthe ordinary football fan will be on the terraces/in the stands this weekend and detest everything this scheme stands for.
     
  19. SoccerPrime

    SoccerPrime Moderator
    Staff Member

    All of them
    Apr 14, 2003
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    But isn't this essentially what FCUM did, but using a worldwide "fan" base for membership/ownership and allowing them new levels of control?
     
  20. act smiley

    act smiley Member

    Feb 8, 2005
    Cardiff
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    In terms of having a trust owning a football club, yes, as have many others - the difference is they're going to buy a club thats already in existance (which has obviously also been done) and the "new levels of control" thing is pretty much the sticking point, at least to me as like many have said here, it seems pretty disrespectful to a club to treat it like a toy. If they were starting a team it wouldn't have been a problem to many people, I suspect, but to take over a team and mess about with it is something different. Again, if they were just planning on taking over and running a team without messing about interfereing with the manager's job, then I doubt many people would complain about that, either.

    To be honest, I'd actually find it very interesting to see how a scheme thats similar in terms of ownership method but less absurd in the degree of how hands on things are would do in comparison, on the pitch and off it.
     
  21. bdndyc

    bdndyc New Member

    Apr 14, 2007
    Not really, they just created a new club, some did the hard yards behind the scene to get them a ground and into the league system and the rest vore with their feet, coming to watch do the club get big crowds, much more money than other clubs at their level and so move up the leagues until they find their level and are essentially run like most other clubs with a management separate from the fans. I may not agree with what FCUM stand for but I can't fault the way they're gone about it. They didn't just club together to buy a club from the United area and change it's name and ruin it for the people their, they started a new team and by turning out week in and week out they've made it a success. Fair play to them.

    This however involves 50,000 people playing real life Football Manager with a club that potentially thousands (depending on who they take over) have a passionate alliance with and ruining the club for them all. That's not on.

    There are clubs who'd appreciate the attention and media interest this investment would bring but I get no impression the owners of the website intend on cancassing fans opinions or anything and that's what I find completely unacceptable.
     
  22. act smiley

    act smiley Member

    Feb 8, 2005
    Cardiff
    Club:
    Leicester City FC
    So, you're another in the "Needs more respect" column on this one then, rather than flat out disgust? Interesting. I wonder if there'd be enough people with that view to make their gimmicks actually cost them more members than they'd earn.
     
  23. bdndyc

    bdndyc New Member

    Apr 14, 2007
    I doubt it because there will be loads of people who don't get football who'll be dragged in by the "bringing the game back to the ordinary fan" line.

    As an idea I think it's quite brave, I'm not against them running a club, in principle but like you say I think they need to show more respect and be careful with the club they take over, some clubs would embrace it and I hope it's one of these that they take overm I worry it won't be as those that will want this investment will be smaller and less fashionable.
     
  24. JackBastard

    JackBastard Member

    Jan 21, 2007
    Bridgend
    Club:
    Swansea City AFC
    Nat'l Team:
    Wales
    This really is a terrible idea. Nobody is going to want a fans consortium running their club when most of the people don't give a schit about the club they're taking over.
     
  25. bdndyc

    bdndyc New Member

    Apr 14, 2007
    Accy Stanley are in real danger of going out of business.

    A club with that celebrity (from the milk advert :p) and in such a desparate situation with such an appaling fanbase (118 season tickets sold and less than 1000 home fans last game) would mean that if this does get going sooner rather than later then they would make a lot of sense to take over and I wouldn't be against it as it's better than the alternative for them.
     

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