It is not the Fault of Sky TV .....mostly

Well that was an interesting 24 hours.......turns out folk actually read this stuff, and thanks to all those that did and gave feedback.

I thought before moving on to a PART 2 re #fanownership routes in Scottish Football Clubs a brief history of Football Finance might be useful in order to set the scene as to why #fanownership is nothing new but just a return to the roots of the game.

IT IS NOT THE FAULT OF SKY TV .....mostly

Often we blame the entrance of vast TV money into  the game as the reason for many of the games ills, but the roots of the problem are much older and started when Clubs originally moved away from the Fanownership Model

Virtually all Clubs in Scotland are now Ltd Companies and yet the vast majority of those professional clubs that exist today did not start out this way.

Most began life as some sort of members Club, either having taken up playing Football as a result of already being a Cricket or a Rugby Club or as a bunch of mates coming together basically "wanting a game".

Very quickly in the late 19th century the game expanded in popularity beyond anything any other sport had ever seen.

Most Sports prior to the explosion of Football were sports largely of participation, Cricket, and Golf for example were participation Sports and not viewer sports, having been founded and played from the 15th and 16th century.

Football was different, cultural and most importantly economic change as a result of the 2nd Industrial Revolution meant more people were not now working on a full Saturday.....but as the song goes were having a "half day off"

This was great for the game but bad for finances of these members Clubs. 

Fundamentally the money coming through the gate (there was no other route of funding, no TV, no merchandise, no Corporate hospitality) from what was mostly a working class audience was simply not enough to support the infrastructure that was now required to hold the number of people that were turning up to the games.

The solution came from a change of corporate structure from Members Clubs (Basically Fanowned ) to Ltd companies with issued share capital.

A change in the law enabled these Members Clubs to change themselves into Ltd Companies and sell shares, but the purpose of this was to raise capital for investment in Stadia to cope with the crowds that now were flocking to games, and indeed this is generally what happened. Scottish clubs became Ltd companies raised substantially sums of money over a number of share issues and built some magnificent stadia.

In theory this was what was needed at the time but looking back with 20:20 hindsight you can see that this is where the rot started to set in as the power started to shift from the individual member of the Club.....e.g. the Fans to those who could command the ownership of the most shares.

Now is the time for the Fans to take the Clubs back.....buying the shares in whatever club it is that you love, but holding those shares as a Collective group of Fans the way that all of our clubs were originally supposed to be.

So don’t think that Fanownership is some new-fangled liberal nonsense, it is how the founders of all of your Clubs started and is the vision they held when they first kicked a ball.......time to take your Ball Back

@rchrdtknsn