In 7 Days I Will Own a Football Club
Yesterday, I received this email:
Dear Ahmed,
Over 27,000 MyFootballClub members are one week from buying a 75% stake in Ebbsfleet United Football Club.
Members have seven days to authorise the agreement to take control of Ebbsfleet United.
Thank you,
The MyFootballClub Team
What? In 7 days I am going to own a football club? Awesome!
According to this Beeb article (I haven’t logged in to register my official vote yet, but I will), the first “Internet” team selection is scheduled for March, which is probably the time needed to sort out the technical / logistical issues (right…) but in any case is a real bummer for those potential club shareholders who wanted to help Ebbsfleet start winning now - I mean, come on, the club is 3 points off a promotion spot, surely they need help now more than they’d need help in March?
At least the manager will have funds in January thanks to the sale - but I’m pretty sure (from what I’ve read so far) that the new shareholders will have no say in those transfers, but hey, I could be wrong and we could have a couple of days to approve transfers next week.
Liam Daish’s contract (the manager, silly) will be extended by a year to the end of the 2008/09 season as part of the deal - apparently we don’t get say in who stays manager for over an year. I wonder if there’s a way to start a motion to change managers in May - I’d like someone more famous please, the kind of young manager who loves the spotlight that the Internet-owned Ebbsfleet will give him and is moderately good at what he does too.
In any case, new manager or not, say in transfers and team selections or not, I’m buying Ebbsfleet club. Although if the fans say no (more than 50% of the 27k members have to vote yes, and I think they’ll get an overwhelming YES), it’s going to be a hilarious situation 
- The Football Manager Addiction…
- Soccerlens takes a week off…
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- West Ham are fracked by the Premier League over MSI deal for Tevez and Mascherano
- Barcelona 2-2 Chelsea - download goal vids here
Discussion - 13 Responses
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“I’d like someone more famous please, the kind of young manager who loves the spotlight that the Internet-owned Ebbsfleet will give him and is moderately good at what he does too.”
Mourinho is still out of work…
Lol yeah!
I was going to sign up for that but I couldn’t be bothered, Congratulations Ahmed!
Weird weird weird. But hey have fun with it!
Wtf?
They reckon the manager Liam Daish will be off to Brentford soon
I have a question about this. Will you have a vote on the actual team as has been reported in some places? Or just a vote on AGM related matters, such as who the manager should be?
Picking the team via the Internet is all very well if you were actually only playing Football Manager 2008, but how can 27,000 owners pick a side?
The only crazier idea than 27,000 people picking a team is letting Kevin Keegan pick a team
You know there is another outfit out there in line to let you part own a football club. All exciting stuff - I think they are http://www.thepeoplesclub.com
Ahmed, how do you figure you will be able to pick players given that you, or at least most of the members, have never seen any of those players play?
They should just give the manager freedom to pick his team and then, the members can vote on whether to go through with a transfer or not. Just like a real club, not BBC’s ‘pick your squad’
Players are picked either by attending matches, or through highlights packages to be made available on the My Football Club website. You may think that this is ridiculous - but Sven was (falsely, of course) said to have assembled a squad from video tapes, whilst all of us sit there shouting at the screen every week, analysing the players’ talents.
The idea has been well thought out practically, with most of the bases covered. If people take it seriously, rather than making arbitrary decisions, it’ll all go well.
That said, what attributes are demanded of voters in this country? None, barring their age. If hordes of uninformed voters are fit to elect a local government and then a national one, I think people shouldn’t question their ability to manage a football club. However, we did elect Blair. Twice.
I can’t wait for this to take off… Should be interesting to say the least.
Regards, fellow future EUFC shareholder
Hugo, you very well know that one cannot value a player just by looking at videos of the lad. There is a reason that clubs spend money to send scouts across the world rather than just watch videos.
Hugo:
I’d take a bit more umbrage with Thatcher than Blair…he ushered the Pound Sterling into something of a heyday, while the only heyday Thatcher presided over was the CCTV-blanketing of your fair isle.
But meh, I’m on the west side of the pond, and don’t get a Daily Mirror fix, so what do I know?
So, nice. Congrats!