Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does » The Five Pound Football Club
By Phil Gregory
I recently stumbled upon Five Pound Football Club – a fantastic initiative whereby for a fiver anybody can contribute to the purchase of a football club.
In an era of billionaires, leveraged buyouts and regular administrations for lower league sides, the democratic and community-focused ownership model of Five Pound Football Club stands apart from the rest.
Membership for the scheme currently stands at over 250, with the initial target being 500. Such a number would give the scheme sufficient financial muscle to be taken seriously and allow enquiries and negotiations into clubs to start taking place, with the final target of 5000 providing the capital to purchase.
For an Arsenal fan, this sort of initiative should make us think of the current politics surrounding our own club. For the un-initiated, in a nutshell, the situation involves the current board seeking to fend off a hostile takeover from Alisher Usmanov, a Russian billionaire in the Abramovich mould, less wealthy but with a more questionable past.
Also looking to get in on the party is one Stan Kroenke, an American who now holds the current board’s favour. With a significant number of shares outside of the board’s mighty “lockdown” agree with the departure of Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith, both Usmanov and Kroenke were looking to snap up these shares in order to take them over the 30% threshold.
So how does this relate to Five Pound Football Club? Well, for one it’s the principle. The founder of Five Pound Football Club wants the club to be run the right way: within reasonable budgets and with lots of community involvement. This means he realises that a club is more than just a business, and as such provisions must be made to ensure the club has a stable financial base; more than can be said for a certain Russian oligarch.
Usmanov, with the full support of ex-Arsenal favourite David Dein, would go the other way, pumping cash into the team and spending unsustainably in order to win trophies. Or at least that’s the plan. There was no mention of what would happen if this cash influx made Arsenal loss-making and then Usmanov lost interest, or if the spending achieved nothing (for further examples of this, see Real Madrid or the net spends of Liverpool FC during the time of Mr Benitez).
This contrasts with Mr Kroenke, who sees Arsenal much like Tony, Walter and I: a club up there for the trophies despite a lengthy injury list, and with a conveyor belt of young talent coming through, as well as nice low wages when considered in relation to the sheer size of the operation that is Arsenal FC.
Kroenke’s takeover and his support for the current sustainable model would no doubt be very similar to a takeover done by Five Pound Football Club, who are actively targeting a club low down on the footballing pyramid where “financial doping” isn’t the norm, allowing a club to be both sustainable and competitive without relying on Wenger-esque transfer market miracles.
As an operation, Five Pound Football Club seems to have all the right ideas. The organiser certainly has his head screwed on right: he’s always involved in discussions with members and champions the idea that the capital the members would be providing would go into something substantial, not picking up the tab of an excessive wage bill. By this, the philosophy is that Five Pound Football Club’s funds would be going into infrastructure, perhaps overhauling the youth setup (to yield dividends in years to come) or improving facilities such as the training complex or stadium, or even funding the purchase of a star player (providing wages could be covered by what the club itself generated, of course!).
The possibilities are limitless, and by targeting a smaller club, such an injection of funds could well by the stimulus a stagnant club needed to move onwards and upwards.
Most people, when they hear of Five Pound Football Club think of Ebbsfleet. There is a big difference: Five Pound Football Club targets a sustainable model, therefore membership costs would be low and constant (unless you decided to chip in with a little extra). Ebbsfleet’s idea bought too big a club and costs were never covered to start with, forcing membership costs upwards and the average Joe out the door.
Every shareholder gets a vote for all major decisions so your voice is heard. That said, there is such a thing as too much democracy, as Ebbsfleet found with gimmicks such as “Pick the team” proving to be an Achilles Heel. Members would elect a board who would act on the day to day running with a manager organising the playing side of things. Shareholders are voted for their board representatives and on broader, owner-related matters. For anybody who’s interest in football goes beyond keeping an eye on results and who is concerned by the issues affecting the game, Five Pound Football Club is one way to go about it.
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