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.