Owners and directions tested
Organised fan groups need to assert their ability to see the bigger picture if football's ownership crisis is going to be resolved satisfactorily
Those of us who have argued that fans should be given more say in who owns our clubs and how they are run have to face up to a serious problem. It’s summed up in Jonathan Wilson’s editor’s letter in the latest issue of The Blizzard. He says: “Football feels very tiring at the moment. Wherever you look there is exploitation and greed, with fans treated with contempt and no sense that the game may have a role beyond making money for those who already have a lot of it – a process to which large sections of fans suddenly turn a blind eye when it turns out it may be their club that prospers.”
Football’s tribalism has been turbocharged by the rampant commercialisation of our game, so much so that we have become accustomed to fans taking positions on issues such as human rights, corruption and fair competition based on club loyalty. Some things, many things, are bigger than football and some sense of proportion needs to be regained. It is within our gift as fans to do that.
We will not get very far arguing, as we should, that fans should have real influence in the way our clubs are run if we then signal we’d be prepared to accept that anything goes in the pursuit of success. Sportswashing is not bad because rival clubs do it, it’s objectively bad full stop.
It’s been said that fans don’t get to choose who owns our clubs. Which is part of the problem. But not being able to choose our owners doesn’t mean we have to support everything they do. And nor does it mean actively pushing for owners with questionable backgrounds. When supporters back the bad, the questionable, the unethical because they think it will give their team an advantage, it undermines the case we all make for greater supporter influence. And that’s because we can’t call for those who run the game to prevent things we are in favour of if they benefit us, but are against if they benefit others.
This could put supporters’ organisations in very difficult positions. As membership bodies, they have to reflect the wishes of their members. So if members are overwhelmingly pushing for a new owner despite doubts about their background or intention, shouldn’t they just do what their members want? It’s a dilemma that faces every membership organisation. But there’s another aspect to stepping up and representing people. And that’s being prepared to take a lead. That doesn’t mean ignoring what members say, but it does mean being prepared to argue for what you believe in.
It is important for fan organisations to take a clear and consistent line to prevent other narratives being set. If we don’t, the ground is occupied by the Manchester City fans who go after those who raise questions about the United Arab Emirates, by the Newcastle United fans who take whataboutery to new levels whenever questions about Saudi Arabia are raised, by the Chelsea fans who chant Roman Abramovitch’s name and ask “why do these things always happen to us?” when the war in Ukraine is mentioned.
It's also important to challenge the short-termism of backing the prospect of immediate success. Sure, there are plenty of Chelsea fans who say they wouldn’t swap the last 20 years for anything. But there will be some who recognise the uncomfortable questions raised. Abramovitch’s entry into English football was a game changer. It inflated transfer fees and wages. The playing field that was far from level before became even more skewed. Genuine competition became harder simply because one club could massively outspend every other. And did. Abramovitch’s arrival also alerted others to the reputational value of owning a football club in the world’s most high-profile football league. Without him, would the UAE and Saudi Arabia be here now? And when three teams are able to buy out and buy off all competition, how attractive will the world’s most high-profile football league be then?
Even now, I can see the tide of whataboutery and bile this piece will almost certainly prompt. And what that does, as well as expose the utter lack of proportion of people who don’t see the difference between leveraged debt and executing 81 people in one day, or between currency speculation and bombing maternity hospitals, is obscure the real threats to our game.
Reputationally, the English Premier League is already pretty battered. I’ve previously stated that, while the Premier League does make itself hard to like, it is not the pantomime villain many like to portray it as, and its success as a business needs to be acknowledged. But rumours that it is cautious about what action it takes against Chelsea because it is worried about ‘reputational damage’ raise an eyebrow. It’s hard to remember a day on which more reputational damage coalesced than when the Chelsea v Newcastle United game was played.
To recap, in the wake of a vicious war and a wave of executions, teams owned by figures closely linked with both regimes played each other while fans of one side chanted their owners’ name and fans of the other responded with chants celebrating the fact they would soon be ‘richer than you’ and displaying the Saudi flag. All in a stadium where the home club thought it still appropriate to display a large banner bearing the words ‘The Roman Empire’. Pretty damaging to the reputation of all concerned. Live in front of a global TV audience.
The words ‘wake-up call’ have been used more than once in the past few weeks. And more fans need to wake up to the need to apply a consistent set of standards, to avoid seeing things solely through a club prism and instead look at the game as a whole. Just as fans did when opposing the European Super League breakaway attempt.
But those running the Premier League need to wake up too. The line it has long taken is that, if the UK government welcomes investment from someone, it can’t block investment from the same entities, otherwise it would be open to legal action. But the Premier League, as competition organiser, can set whatever rules it likes – and it does when it suits it. No doubt there would a be a legal battle over where legitimate competition regulation stopped and restraint of free trade started, but that battle is there in the background anyway. And the problem for many years has been the Premier League’s uncritical embrace of the untrammelled free market.
That has led us to where we find ourselves today. And where we find ourselves is not just in a situation where competition has been unfairly skewed, or where reputation is severely tainted. We’re also in a situation where the survival of clubs is even more dependent on the whims of an owner. The questions raised over the future of post-Abramovitch Chelsea have centred on whether or not it is “fair” that a club or its fans should “suffer” – and that word really does need to be used with more care in the current circumstances – because of its owner. The observation that if you make your bed you have to lie in it comes to mind here, and I’m pretty convinced the vast majority of fans take the view that we didn’t hear much about the flaws in Chelsea’s ownership model when times were good. And the protestations about the absolute necessity to make sure the institution that is Chelsea FC is not allowed to disappear will surely ring hollow on the streets of Bury, Chester and Macclesfield.
The more prescient Manchester City and Newcastle United fans must now be wondering what would happen should their owners fall foul of new regulation, or decide that the risk of investing in an English club is no longer worth it. Let’s not forget they own these clubs to burnish their own reputations, not because of any commitment to the institution. Complete reliance on a single owner’s generosity is not a sustainable business model.
There needs to a be a game-wide response to the crisis prompted by current ownership structures in football. The line that ‘fans are the lifeblood of the game’ has been used often, but its implications not recognised – whether wilfully or not, the result is the same. It’s only the fans who care for their clubs as sporting, cultural and community institutions above all else. And so they need to be given real power in the ownership and running of the clubs they support financially as well as emotionally.
The big omission in the Fan-Led Review was any provision to give fans this kind of real power. Whether that omission was an ideological or a tactical decision is open to debate, but the fact remains that recent events have thrown that omission into sharper perspective. The government has a chance to act by legislating for real fan influence on the ownership and running of clubs.
It’s important for fans to eschew tribalism for many reasons, but especially important in this instance as we have to show we are the true guardians of the game itself. If we’re scoring points and indulging in whataboutery, we’ll get nowhere.
The Premier League, which let’s remember is the 20 clubs, also needs to step up and assert itself as a competition organiser. It can control who invests and how, and it can act – as other leagues do – to preserve a competitive environment. That can be helped by those clubs that do attempt to run themselves as sustainable businesses asserting their will, as well as by the government following through on its populist rhetoric and recognising the unique nature of the football business.
Progressive change that brings English football out of the mire it is currently in is by no means certain. Fan organisations taking a lead and showing they can be a key part of a whole-game solution can play a significant role in achieving the change that is needed.
Header photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels