Skip to main content

Fans look for a greater say in clubs

Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim owns Valencia CF, one of Spain’s biggest football clubs. Fans complain he uses their team for personal enrichment, such as speculating on players by trading in Europe’s multibillion-euro transfer market. 

“I can do 101 things to make money, and money that I believe I can better control,” said Lim, in an interview with the Financial Times this week. “This is something quite nice. I wake up, I own a football club and I see what happens next. It’s nothing more.”

For Lim, Valencia is a “trophy asset”, one that allows him to socialise with the sport’s rich and famous. He has no desire to sell, but believes the club is worth substantially more than the €100m he spent to acquire a majority stake in 2014. Instead, Lim has engaged in a fire sale of players, arguing runaway spending on footballers is no longer sustainable. 

This approach to club ownership reveals a growing disconnect between some wealthy overseas investors drawn to the sport’s huge global audiences, and local fan bases who still view football clubs as primarily a source of community pride.

In Valencia’s case, Libertad VCF, a supporter’s group, is attempting to persuade thousands of individual Valencia shareholders to join forces with a combined five per cent stake. At that threshold, under Spanish law, the group can better scrutinise club operations, such as gaining access to contracts or appointing a board member. 

Changes are afoot elsewhere. Chelsea said this week that three supporters will be invited to attend board meetings and participate in the club’s decision making process.   They will not, however, be able to vote or discuss matters relating to players or managers which leaves them with topics such as ticket prices and catering.

Some English fans would love to adopt German football’s 50+1 system, where in most cases, clubs must be majority-owned by their members.  That model has its drawbacks, such as making clubs unattractive to foreign investors. That helps to partly explain why Bundesliga, Germany’s top tier, is dominated by Bayern Munich, the nation’s wealthiest club and a darling of German corporate sponsors. Still, attempts to tweak the 50+1 system have failed thanks to resistance from fan groups.

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...
Post a Comment
Read more

Threat of financial calamity removed from Baggies

West Bromwich Albion had effectively been in decline ever since the club was sold to a Chinese consortium in August 2016, paying a figure north of £200m to buy former owner Jeremy Peace’s stake. Controlling shareholder Guochuan Lai’s ownership was fairly disastrous for the club, but his unloved tenure finally came to an end after Bilkul Football WBA, a company ultimately owned by Florida-based entrepreneur Shilen Patel and his father Dr Kiran Patel, acquired an 87.8% shareholding in West Bromwich Albion Group Limited, the parent company of West Bromwich Albion Football Club. This change in ownership was urgently required, due to the numerous financial problems facing West Brom, including growing high-interest debt and serious cash flow concerns, following years of no investment from the former owner. Indeed, West Brom’s auditors had already rung the alarm bell in the 2021/22 accounts when they cast doubt on the club’s ability to continue as a going concern without making player s...
1 comment
Read more

A poor financial record, but new hope at Everton

I recently saw an amusing video online in which a group of Everton fans were rebuked in jest for being hopeful.  Football fans in general tend to swing between excessive optimism and excessive pessimism, but for many it seems that moaning is in their bloodstream (Spurs fans probably take the trophy).  However, Everton fans have had plenty to moan about on and off the pitch.   Let’s hope that a new era is about to begin for this grand old club. Everton’s 2023/24 financial results covered a fairly momentous season, when they ended up 15th in the Premier League, though they would finished three places higher if they had not received an 8-point deduction for breaching the Premier League’s Profitability and Sustainability Regulations (PSR). It was a worrying time for Everton fans, as the club faced a “perfect storm” of issues, including large financial losses, an ever increasing debt burden, a challenging stadium build and the tortuous sale of the club. There were eve...
Post a Comment
Read more