12/22/24
April 27, 2007
The Real Winning Eleven: Want to own a stake in an English football team, but don't have pockets as deep as Roman Abramovich, Malcolm Glazer, George Gillett and Tom Hicks, Randy Lerner, or possibly even Stan Kroenke? Now's your chance! MyFootballClub is recruiting 50,000 members to bid for an English football club. Hoping to make history together by voting on which team to purchase—as well as which players to buy and sell—members plan to guide a club up the leagues and share equal ownership and control. Just like a football management game, but for real.
I see The Arsenal is number two on the wanted list. I heard Abramovich's ex-wife (who collected a billion dollars in the divorce settlement) has inquired about purchasing the club. I think the offer is somewhere around 700 million pounds. They should set their sites a little lower, me thinks. I voted for QPR and would contribute if this actually became feasible. But really, how many of us know which holding mid-fielder in the second division should be bought/sold? This group would likely digress into 49,974 people choosing a keeper based on the town he was born in or because name 'sounds English'. Still, interesting idea. Nice find Terp.
posted by r8rh8r27 at 02:07 PM on April 27, 2007
But for all us non-footie followers on SpoFi, how far will £ 1,375,000 actually go? Just as an example, Aston Villa was ranked the 25th most valuable football franchise in the world at a cost of $140 million, or about 70 million GBP. I've signed up as a member. Could be interesting. Thanks for posting this, terrapin.
posted by Texan_lost_in_NY at 02:16 PM on April 27, 2007
I was thinking we should form an ownership group on SpoFi and pool our voting power :) If I can talk the wife into letting me have 35 quid I am in! Oh, I should have giving props to Sportable for the lead on this. I normally find that site pompous and even a little ignorant when it comes to footie, but this was a nice find.
posted by scully at 02:22 PM on April 27, 2007
The management issues shouldn't be too much of a problem, R8. If every member has an equal stake (or shareholding), then we would have 'one vote, one value' when it comes to electing a board to run the club. The 'constitution' of such a club should preclude an individual or any family (say) having more than one vote. This won't prevent the formation of factions or voting blocs, but would at least ensure that each faction is broadly representative of a group of supporter or the community. Kind of like democracy, really. What would be even better was if the board had manager and player (i.e. employee) representation as well, or even have players in the general share ownership. That could improve club loyalty. I say Yes!
posted by owlhouse at 07:38 PM on April 27, 2007
btw, Barcelona is member-owned. And I think the members are wise enough to leave the management decisions to, well, management. I think this is a fun idea. But it's gonna end in tears. Although, for 35 quid (that's US$70) it'll probably be more of a hoot, whatever happens. Hmmm.
posted by worldcup2002 at 12:53 AM on May 01, 2007
Neat idea. But for all us non-footie followers on SpoFi, how far will £ 1,375,000 actually go?