Would you rather the club be in league two but owned by supporters

I think if you get the balance of the squad right, then the budget would be there to be able to have a core of more experienced players that will give the remaining younger players a better chance.

Look at our defence, we have Kitching, Sibbick and Moon competing for the third centre back spot. You could sacrifice two of those for a more experienced defender and that would mean the other one isn't thrown in at the deep end. Moon's development has probably been hindered after an extended run that he wasn't ready for, particularly given he was shunted around different positions as well.

Keeping Palmer into his last year, and signing Benson and Gomes has probably hindered all of them. Could sacrifice two of those for a midfielder that's ready for this level, even if it's a loan.

They don't have to be "our own", but the academy is pretty redundant if our first team is an u23s side as well.

 

Much prefer being in the champ under these owners than I would being in league 2 with fan ownership. I’d have absolutely no interest in giving up my Saturday to sit in the rain in a 90% empty Oakwell to watch us draw with Harrogate Town. And a co-op of fans sounds good in theory but in reality I doubt it’d be possible to raise enough cash to finance the deal and run the club, and while fans might care about the club that doesn’t mean they’ve got the faintest clue about how to make a club successful.

You’ve only got to read this board or listen to any conversation in the pub or at the game to know that fans often don’t agree and regularly come up with some spectacularly awful ideas that have no grounding in reality. Every board meeting would just end up in a massive row because board member A’s criteria for a new manager was based purely on them being born within 500 yards of Dodworth chippy.

 

It wasn't a show it was some sort of conference on player recruitment where he was a speaker and he said something along the lines of playing the long ball style of football had a detrimental effect on player value. Both the CEO and James Cryne made comments about the subject and subsequently a change in playing style was made and that as been an unmitigated disaster.

 

As long as I can remember a significant number of fans (on this board and beyond) have tried to insist that the Club spend money that it doesn`t have putting the future in jeopardy.
Does anybody seriously think that this would change if we were a "community" owned club in League 2.
Just for balance this post doesn`t mean I like the status quo - just haven`t yet seen or read any viable alternatives.

 

Did he mean that or was he giving a poor example to back up a reply on a question about why we weren’t playing the extreme high press anymore .he seemed to say the system under Val wasn’t utilising the skills of the players we have to the full extent and to back this up he said we had no offers for players in the close season , I might be wrong but I don’t think he used the word ‘sell’ anywhere . On the other hand you might be right about the ultimate motivation

 

Floating about now. I wanna see my club at the highest possible level.

 

It depends how you view 'fan ownership'. The definition could mean a whole range of things.

The pre-admin period under John Dennis and co (and pretty much the entire history before then) was fan ownership, in the sense of a group of local businessmen who had invested in the club. The Cryne era was fan ownership in the form of a single shareholder.

The logical way forward, for me, would be a similar model of a consortium of owner-supporters with good business acumen. The wider fanbase could be represented by supporter representation on the Board, via an official appointment (e.g. an elected rep through BFCST or similar).

This is more realistic than the wider ownership model where thousands of people chip in relatively small amounts to own the club (probably the most famous example of this is the Green Bay Packers in the NFL, where no-one is allowed to sell the shares once owned, so they're effectively worthless in terms of a return on investment). This could well be feasible via many small shareholdings, but the company would ultimately still need an Executive Board to run the club, which most logically would be formed in a similar way as outlined above. I think it's more likely that you get the same end result via few shareholders, each with more meaningful interests in the company they're running.

 

It was a clear insinuation that a negative spin was being applied.........like most fuking posts on this board at times

 

Nobody put a gun to your head and made you read or comment though did they? And plenty of others seem to want to talk about it.

It was a valid question.

 

You've saved me typing pretty much the exact same thing.

I get the feeling there is a perception for some of 10,000 shareholders all sat at a board meeting discussing trivia from squad numbers to what pattern to cut on the pitch.

Fan involvement could take many forms but ultimately an executive would be in place. Ideally one with core skills equipped to deal with marketing, communications, legal and finance related matters.

 

Harrogate go on a decent run again, your worst fears might come to fruition next season.
Albeit in L1

 

Fan owned clubs are not run by the supporters
there are people who are employed and given full authority to run the day to day operations of the club.
it would not be run by the fans in the tap room of the east dene or from the Dove inn or from the Dodworth chippy as people have said
you would not be able to be sat in your front room watching the match on ifollow and ring the manager up/ at half time and demand woodrow be substituted for Victor.

There would be elections for important matters and you would have a member sitting permanently on the board
but that would be it.
if fans took over nothing would change as in the people below the "Owners" would still continue to run the club as is.

i think the best we could wish for at present would be a consortium of if possible 25 % fan share so we entitled to a say on the board 20 % or more Crynes
and find a outside investor to cover the rest

 

I’m sure there’s a few former BFC shareholders who would say we had that ownership model for decades

 

I have to disagree.

Cos ever since PC took over, we consistently received what most believed under value for any sales.

Had we not received stupidly low fees (such as 500k vaz te, 300k Davies just as 2 examples) we may not have had to rely on PC plugging a gap.

As such been able to compete with more money to start with.

That kind of small club mentality and perception from other clubs still hangs around now.

Look at Peterborough. At least they manage to get decent fees.

If we are to sell, at least sell well.

 

The problem is we need money every year for the running costs of the club or else we would fall into larger and larger debt which we cannot escape from which seems many peoples worry on here.
I am sure the Crynes would rather have not as you say plugged the gaps every year.
when you are in that position it makes for very difficult decisions regarding player sale values.

say no .not enough money up the offer etc and that buyer may or goes elsewhere and buys a player from another club unless you have a hot commodity that everyone wants.
and what happens then and then again next time you turn down a offer for a different player saying its too low

the present consortium have made it clear that under no circumstances will they put any of there own money into the club.
i cannot think of a more ludicrous thing to make public.
this drops your bargaining power to zero and means you are unable to take the high ground on any player dealings
and its going to be
take it or leave it .
you need the money we don't.

 

Is it ?

I posted a hypothetical but topical question relating to our ownership structure to generate some discussion about Barnsley FC, on a forum about Barnsley FC. Doesn’t seem too strange to me.

 

A lot of the German clubs are part owned by German Auto companies and kit companies who are also the main sponsors of said clubs
For example Bayern are part owned by Audi who recently signed a 500 million sponsorship deal with them
and they are also part owned by Adidas who also signed a 10 year 50 million a year deal with them.

in a completely unrelated coincidence
Chief executives at both Audi and Adidas resigned and are now working at Bayern presiding over the day to day running of the club.
and Bayern's supervisory board members seem to consist totally of the Audi CEO and Audi executives.


interestingly there seems to be a exemption for long term owners and sponsors of clubs which could or may prove a unfair advantage
and as the above poster says there is always a way round the rules if you really want to go that route

RasenBallsport Leipzig did not exist 11 years ago.

Redbull bought and took over a playing licence of a 5th tier club, renamed the club to RasenBallsport Leipzig, which was then sneakily shortened to RB Leipzig and bankrolled them all the way into the top league and into the champions league.
the club has 20 members in the ownership group
all of them are......Red bull employees.
there nickname translates into The Redbulls
And the club is commonly and always referred to by people as Redbull Leipzig.
of course it cannot officially be called that moniker as that would break the rules.