Rocket science latest
Why do so many find it so difficult to understand the role fans can play in football?
Can football change, particularly at the top level? In the week in which Tracey Crouch’s fan-led review is due to publish its recommendations for reforming the game it’s worth posing this question again, and considering what part, if any, fans can play.
It’s seven months since the attempt to form a European Super League gave the reform process renewed impetus and provoked widespread calls for change. But despite all the talk of listening and promises to consult and understand better, too much of what’s coming from inside the game suggests it sees the problem as one of poor communication, not a fundamentally wrong message.
What was interesting, encouraging even, about the reaction to the ESL proposals was the strength and depth of opposition to a proposal that would have destroyed the English football pyramid. Fans saw the bigger picture – and not the one the Premier League clubs were talking about. They cared about the greater good, they put the interests of the game before the self-interest of their own clubs. And their reaction was largely spontaneous. It’s true fan groups had been arguing against a number of proposals to further undermine competition by entrenching the advantage of the top clubs in the game, but the fans who raised their voices did so largely from a gut feeling about right and wrong.
Fans often understand more than we are given credit for. But it still seems difficult for many observers to acknowledge this. One example came in August, when journalist Jonathan Liew, often an astute observer of the game, published an uncharacteristically careless piece that attempted to use the contrast between the fan anger of April and the reaction to the media-confected circus of the transfer window as evidence that nothing will change. Fans are, apparently, “voiceless and unorganised” and “sustaining concerted opposition to owners is almost impossible”. Throw in a closing quote from Simon Jordan, almost invariably unwitting proof you’re marshalling the wrong arguments, and what’s left is another version of the old classic ‘the stupid fans are to blame’ that has been running in all media for much of the last 30 years.
I’m not arguing fans are always right. But I do know there are many different views, and not just the ones on social media. Nor do I argue that all club boards are always wrong. But their decisions as entities are more easily identifiable, and a look at how some of them have reacted since the upheaval of April is instructive.
What better time than now could there be, for example, for football clubs to embrace a business model that has been vociferously opposed by fans, which goes to great lengths to pretend it’s not really what it is, and which pulls fans into a financially unregulated netherworld that UK regulator the Financial Conduct Authority currently forbids trade in. I’m talking about Socios, a business I’ve written about before. There’s been a flurry of Premier League clubs signing up in spite of clear concerns being raised, and in spite of a major announcement on the subject by the FCA .
I have nothing against the idea of cryptocurrencies as such. But people need to know what they are getting themselves into, and I can recommend the Twitter feed of Martin Calladine (@uglygame) for detailed running commentary on Socios’ increasingly contorted efforts to pretend it’s not getting its customers to trade crypto. Add in the fundamental objections to aspects such as monetising fan engagement – which Socios claims it is not trying to do, except when it is issuing press releases about its deal with La Liga, in which case it claims precisely that – and this is a relationship that does not reflect well on football.
Those preparing to dismiss the concerns expressed above might want to cast their minds back a few years to when many clubs were rushing to embrace so-called secondary ticketing agencies. Fan groups expressed concerns over the blurring of the lines between genuine ticket markets and touting, about built-in price inflation, and about transparency and consumer protection. Those concerns were dismissed as variously anti-business and unrealistic by the clubs, who of course were very clever and had considered all this. Now, years later, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has issued a report reflecting many of the concerns expressed years ago, and calling for tighter regulation. Football clubs have moved on, and are now mesmerised by crypto assets. Who is not learning lessons?
Finally, I’ve been catching up on TV while laid up with covid-19 – also the reason I’ve been able to produce another newsletter after the demands of the day job have prevented me from doing so for some months – and can recommend Robbie Savage: Making Macclesfield FC. Despite the forehead-slapping title – one you can imagine Savage himself wincing at – it’s a good piece of filmmaking that understands both what football clubs mean as more than businesses and why football clubs have to be run on sound business principles.
On 36 minutes, there’s a particularly interesting section about how the club’s new owners – described as “typical entrepreneurs who don’t like to be told no” – started to realise the importance of how they interacted with the fans and how it was vital to show they understood what the club was about. In a film about any other business, the importance of understanding and relating to your customers would be a given. In football, it’s too often rocket science.
Photo by ThisIsEngineering from Pexels
PS: I forgot to note how much I liked the picture, of someone doing calculus which has little to do with anything in your lovely article.
Unsurprisingly, another erudite and well-written article. My only comment would be to include a little more on this cryptocurrency (by the back door) prior to your critique. I am a financial economist by training, a crypto-sceptic, and someone who believes that while crypto may be of some use it is too complex for retail (hence "the masses").
Hope you recover fully and speedily from covid, if only to pen more articles like this (I especially like the ones where I don't fully agree, but need to think deeply about why!).