Perhaps the only thing more frustrating than watching your team play poorly and/or lose a game is knowing that you have absolutely no way of influencing their fortunes. You can’t, for instance, jump the fence and sit down with the coach to offer some ‘friendly tactical advice’ - nor can you stump up a cool million for the club to get some decent players. No, alas you must sit there and take it, hoping that things will get better next week; that the players will be more switched on, the coach will make the right decisions, and that the chairman will know who to remove and who to appoint.

Or do you?

Strangely enough, it was while I was interviewing for an IT role at a small investment bank in London that this thought occurred to me. My interviewer ran through all the aspects of the role, then mentioned the company’s share scheme - every worker, from day dot, was given shares in the company. Not just a token one or two, but a proper portfolio of the company’s stock. It didn’t matter whether you were the CEO or the janitor, you would own a piece of the company you worked for. 

As explained by my interviewer, the company owners held the notion that if you had a direct, tangible link to the company’s fortunes, you’d be more motivated to do your job well to ensure that the company - and you - reaped the benefits of its success. Given that there were only 100 people working at this company, the rewards you’d see would certainly be worth it at the end of a good year. It’d be the inspiration to go that extra mile, and it means you actually care about the work you do and the company that you work for.

Now, how does that tie into the A-League? Well, it affects three very common complaints that people have with the league and its ownership structure:

  • Some, if not all, A-League clubs lack spending power needed to support youth teams, marquee signings, and back office staff.
  • A-League teams do not engage with their surrounding communities.
  • Existing fans feel a sense of disconnect with their clubs; their voices aren’t heard or acknowledged, and it can feel like a “turn up, drink, clap, go home” experience rather than a club environment.

Before anybody suggests it, 100% fan ownership as you might see in some places in Europe won’t work in Australia - at least not for a very long time. But what if you could purchase a slice of your club from its owners with each membership? After all, it seems only fair that as you’re investing money in something, you want some sense of control or input into its fortunes. For those people who don’t wish to become too involved in the club - and I think we all must accept that they will always exist - you may wish to create a ‘season ticket’ which is separate from a ‘member’, lacking in some of the benefits but still giving you a spot at every game. Currently an A-League club is a mixture of a charity and a lottery - you put your money in, and it’s not up to you as to whether you get a good or bad return by the end of the year (or any return at all bar severe emotional trauma). Bring in a part fan-ownership solution, and things start to change...

Let’s say that A-League clubs give you some sense of ownership for an extra $50 on top of your normal membership fee. Now that might seem a bit of a hike to some people, but let’s have a look and see how this works out. Melbourne Victory for instance have something like 18,000 members. Let’s take a very conservative estimate and say that there is maybe a hard core of 5,000 people willing to fork out the extra money. Now, what’s the end result of that? $250,000 of extra revenue for the Victory, and 5,000 people with a little bit of influence over their club’s fortunes.

And this is where most arguments fall down. We have clubs with extra money, and we have fans with extra power to - er... well... what, exactly? It’s hardly realistic to expect that fans should have the power to pick a team, control board decisions, or sack the coach when they feel like it. The MyFootballClub experience proves that fans often don’t know what to do with this power anyway. The reality is the vast majority of fans make knee-jerk decisions and don’t have the business nous needed to run an organisation, and this is why we have chief executives and a board of directors. What fans do know however is football - and most specifically, their club and their local community. 

Now I’ve got to reveal a little bit of bias on the subject here - I’ve previously been part of a all too short-lived concept at the Glory where a group of fans were gathered to liaise with the club on a regular basis, discussing topics like venue management, the behaviour of security, relaxing regulations on banners and instruments, and so forth. Unfortunately, what was a good idea fell down because of fans’ internal bickering and a lack of a formal structure. While it existed, it kicked a number of goals on behalf of fans - but at the end of the day, it simply added to the argument of “A-League fans / football fans in general can’t organise their way out of a paper bag”.

Bringing in this concept of part fan ownership could fix those issues. The money you contribute goes towards the fans having a representative on the club’s board. They can put in ideas from the greater fanbase, give opinions and have a vote on club issues. As there is only one fan rep on the board, it’s not like some wacko is going to have the chance to ruin the club from the top - they’ll be outvoted and soon be kicked off the board if they’re not sensible or mature enough to act with responsibility. For the rest of the fans, paying their extra money means they can vote as to who this representative is - perhaps at an AGM or the like before each season. There could be a dedicated mailbox, forum, mailing list, etc for fans to discuss what to communicate to the club via their rep - something which isolates any bickering and internal disputes from the club’s employees. And let’s face it, given the quality of some of the ‘discussions’ on these very forums (and those of the individual clubs) that’s probably a very good thing...

The fan representative needs to be competent enough to make decisions on the run without a consultation process with four thousand other people - but also responsible enough to make decisions that represent the views of the majority of fans, not just their own. As people get to elect this person, it goes further than the ‘active support’ of The Shed, Yarraside, The Squadron - it gives a sense of empowerment to the fans.

What’s more, there can be other benefits for fans’ money apart from representation:

  • “Fan-owned” player. A rookie or youth player whose contract is entirely paid for by the fans. This benefits the player, because he gets some recognition and motivation. It benefits the club, because it’s one less salary to worry about paying; and it also benefits the fans, because they get to choose their favourite youngster and watch them progress throughout the year. It’ll boost youth league attendances too - if you have an investment on the field, you’ll want to see how it’s tracking!
  • “Fan’s choice” pre-season friendly. A friendly against a team of the fans’ choosing (preferably local - I doubt we’ll see Liverpool come down for all you Perth-residing scousers; unless you want to pay for it...) which can be combined with a “family day” to give it a real community feel. Fan volunteers can cook snags and sell beers alongside club staff or players, autographs can be signed, and kids can play small-sided games before or after the main course. Much better than meaningless practice games in front of 4 men and a dog then!
  • Fan opinion. One thing that I cannot understand is why A-League clubs like Perth Glory don’t engage in more meaningful feedback gathering processes. A poll on a website or a five question sheet of paper does not tell you how the club is tracking. Each paying member would have the opportunity to fill out a fan-made form which provided qualitative, not quantitative, comments to the club. This would then be collated and presented to the club by the fan rep.

As I write this, it is quite likely that these ideas are still very much pie-in-the-sky. But it would be my hope that one day - hopefully sooner rather than later - we’ll see some of this come to fruition. A better future for clubs, the league, and fans alike.

After all, just like the company that you part own, aren't you always going to give more for a club that you have a real connection to?