Tuesday 13 November 2007

'My Football Club' Reaches Agreement

Hi All,
MyFootballClub has agreed a deal in principle to purchase a controlling stake in Ebbsfleet United FC. Placed 9th in the Conference, Ebbsfleet United FC is one promotion from reaching the Football League for the first time in its history.

Members will own the club through the MyFootballClub Trust. They will vote on team selection, player transfers and on major club decisions.

In all, MyFootballClub was approached by nine football club owners, and they approached several others.

All club staff will remain. Directors will become non-executive Directors and will continue their roles at the club. The manager Liam Daish's title will change from Manager to Head Coach, in recognition of the unique role he will perform. Liam's backroom staff, including assistant Alan Kimble, will remain.

Liam Daish commented, "As a football fan, I think the MyFootballClub idea is fantastic. And as the coach, I look forward to the challenge of working with thousands of members to produce a winning team. Alan Kimble and myself are 100% committed to making this work."

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I considered joining up when I first heard of this proposal, about 6 months ago. We had some discussion on the blog and podcast at the time about it.
Taking a club so low down the pecking order gives them a chance to buy better players and achieve promotion to the Football League which would give some good PR, which I assume is one of major reasons for the selection. You have to wonder though how does the manager really feel about all this - will he be comfortable working under such a structure?
And how will this work in theory - people are supposed to vote through the website on team selection, signings, etc. but how many people have a proper knowledge of conference football?

It is an intriguing scenario, and one that the club felt they could gamble on, but the logistics of it, the ability to make informed decisions, the financing, are all unclear at this point. Certainly, in the event the club return profits, or is taken over, who gets the money?
I would be analysing the small print in detail, if I was part of.

What's your thoughts on it?

Mark,
http://www.okeydokefootball.com/

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's a cool enough idea in the sense that it will give the lower leagues a boost as more people watch to see how the experiment is going. 20,000 owners should translate into a decent fanbase at games as well.

Team selections is where it might all fall down and i'd say in reality Daish will keep control for a while yet on that score. Some sort of 'bedding in' period or whatever.

Anonymous said...

I am stunned, when the members were gunning for Leeds at one point!

It does make sense though, when you look at the area the team is in, i.e proximity to London, bit inaccessible for Northern members though.

Can't see how it will work in reality, but you never know. They will need a new ground, but will no doubt be fighting off potential sponsors with a shitty stick. Already changed their name, so a club who aren't afraid to take a risk.

I expect their average home gate of 986 to rise considerably!

Hope their first home game since the announcement will see a defeat to the mighty Stafford Rangers, UP THE BORO'

Anonymous said...

Good point about sponsorship. Expect them to be called something like 'Viking Stationary Rovers' in the near future.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Parrotbait said...

From my experience, most people are idiots. Leave a mass of people in charge of clubs finances,picking a team etc. I think theres more than a good chance they'll screw it up and fuck up the club,interesting to watch though!On another note......so thats where Liam Daish went, he looked half decent there for a match or two about a decade ago

Unknown said...

from wikipedia:
"MyFootballClub members each paid £35 to provide an approximate £700,000 takeover pot and all own an equal share in the club but make no profit nor receive a dividend."

So you wont be actually purchasing like a share or anything in the club but just the possibly to have a say in the management of the club.

Might do this myself, might be a bit of a laugh.

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