MyFootballClub: taking over Ebbsfleet, and redefining ‘Fantasy’ Football
Ebbsfleet, playing 4 leagues below the Premier League in the Blue Square League, have agreed to be taken over by MyFootballClub.
£700,000 is a lot of money and kudos to MFC and its owners for negotiating this deal and turning fantasy football into reality.
From Wikipedia:
On November 13, 2007, it was announced that the website MyFootballClub had entered a deal in principle to take over the club. Approximately 20,000 of the purported 50,000+ MyFootballClub members each paid £35 to provide an approximate £700,000 takeover pot and all own an equal share in the club but make no profit nor receive a dividend. Members have a vote on transfers as well as player selection and all major decisions. Because of the nature of MyFootballClub, it was announced that manager Liam Daish would become instead the first Head Coach. His backroom staff would remain at the club.
The full details can be read here, some praise here, and some criticism here.
Of course, I’m going to offer you my own version of events, but in any case please realise that the only concrete thing we know at the moment is that this takeover will help Ebbsfleet buy more players in January which could help them reach the playoffs and get a shot at being promoted to League Two.
That and the fact that the manager is good at kissing ass, if nothing else.
While the chairman (Jason Botley, who in my view was just as excited to be interviewed by BBC Sport) was clear on why he had agreed to this deal (“This extra finance and support will enable our club to progress.”), the manager - Liam Diash, took bending over to a whole new level.
“Picking 11 players and formations isn’t a precise science and luck often plays its part. During and after matches, Ebbsfleet supporters often give me their opinion on which players should or shouldn’t start games. Now they can have their say.
My job won’t change that much. As a club, we’ll select the starting 11 players and formation together. But just as before, what goes on at the training ground and in the dressing room on the day of the match is down to me.
It’s the supporters’ money that finances this club and pays my wages and those of the players. So there’s a good argument for them having a say in what players they want to see.”
I would dissect this sentence by sentence but at this point its enough to say that he’s talking bollocks.
The MyFootballClub meme works because of two reasons: One, it gives football fans the opportunity to believe that they are individually in control - an illusion, perhaps, but the opportunity nevertheless - and two, it feeds the belief that fans should have a say in a club’s affairs because they are the ‘customers’.
Both beliefs are bogus.
The average fan does not possess the information nor has the relationships or proximity with the players nor has access to statistics gleaned from research. In short, the fans don’t know enough in most cases to make decisions.
It gets worse - if lack of knowledge wasn’t enough of a problem, most fans also suffer from a lack of consistency - one day Ryan Giggs is playing well and they’d back him, the other day he’s not playing well and they talk about benching him. Football doesn’t work like that - you look at long-term trends as well as immediate battles, not just one over the other.
Would the majority of fans side with the manager? In most cases, they would and as a result surreal experiences of a manager picking a player but being forced to drop him thanks to the fans’ view will be kept to a minimum. There are problems - people who pay wages should not pick players (that’s the one lesson we’ve learned from the Mourinho-Abramovich saga) - but in most cases ‘things won’t change’ because members will go along with the manager.
This brings us to my first observation: The brilliance of MFC is in how they’re playing the fans - giving them a sense of control while effectively little gets changed. It’s democracy all over again, and I can hardly wait to see them takeover another club.
Next club? So soon? Expect the success of Ebbsfleet to spawn a flurry of investment as more people jump in for the chance to own a piece of a club.
There are a few people who think that the novelty will wear off, but that’s an underestimation of the average football fan. We’re easy to please, and £35 is cheap enough for an yearly installment to be known as a voting shareholder in a club.
Why are fans buying shares into clubs they don’t care about (I’m certain that not every member is an Ebbsfleet fan)? Here’s the second observation:
Fans wish they could own their favourite teams and have a say in running them. MFC’s premise gives hope to that fantasy, regardless of whether it’s feasible or not.
Don’t get me wrong - I enjoy seeing people fall into the false security that MFC provides, and I commend them for playing this the way they have (unless, god forbid, they actually believe their own BS). MyFootballClub won’t crash and burn - Ebbsfleet should flourish and in the future more small clubs will benefit from such investment.
However, will the two fantasies - the sense of control and the chance to own your favourite club - will be unfulfilled for an overwhelming majority of members.
Of course, MFC could just have talked about investing in grass-roots football (I’d pay £1000 right now for that if I knew there would be tangible returns for the community), but that’s not as sexy as running a club, is it?
- In 7 Days I Will Own a Football Club
- Soccerlens Fantasy Football 07/08 - Wrap-up, Winners and Prizes
- My Football Club - nice idea, won’t work
- SquadGod Week 9: An Ode To Crap Managers
- Euro 2008 Fantasy Football - SoccerLens League!
Discussion - 12 Responses
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I agree, MFC is bogus. It is a brilliant scheme to make money and lots of it. Apparently, the guys there keep 7 punds for “administrative purposes”. That is 140,000 punds per year to run their company. It is bullshit! They want to make money and lots of it! Must say they are doing a pretty decnt job, but 20,000 are about to wake up from a dream and smell reality. The sunlight will hit them like a train when they realize they have no real power and that they do not “run” anything.
I wanted to write about this Ahmed, but you beat me to it!
You made some good points about the management of the club: obviously the fans won’t have the direct knowledge the coach has with regards to training, form trends etc., and yes the Ambramovich-Mourinho situation (we could even add Berlusconi-Ancelotti on some occasions, for those that follow the Serie A) indicates the chairman should just provide the cash and keep his trap shut when it comes to tactics.
So in that regard I agree with you.
However, it seems like you’re making MyFootballClub sound like a complete scam, where the fans just pay their club share and then basically have to abide by the manager’s choices. That I think, defeats the whole purpose of MFC. If there’s one thing that’s a constant among fans of the entire universe, is that most of them actually believe they could do a better job than the manager. My take on this is that these people will step up, and will have a strong voice in the team selection, so they will not necessarily agree with the manager if they think that he’s off the mark.
Otherwise, what would be the purpose? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so naive as to believe the fans will actually be running things entirely, but their contribution will have to be significant for MFC to work. The manager will have the final say on team selection, but if for instance, he starts changing players (as voted by the fans) at the last minute (claiming I don’t know, an injury in warm-up), the fans will start to feel cheated, and the MFC concept will crumble.
At any rate, I’m curious as to see where this will go, as well as to effectively witness the logistics of team selection, transfers, and major club decisions.
The question that seems most relevant to me is the one that was asked on the 200percent blog: would you want this to happen to the team that you support? It’s hard for me to believe that very many people would be able to answer “yes” to that question. I think we like the idea of owning someone else’s favorite club a lot more than we like the idea of someone else owning ours.
It’s worth monitoring closely, and I wouldn’t dismiss them just yet. The thing about fantasies is, there’s always more people ready to believe in them.
Of course, in some cases, beggers can’t be choosers.
good article ahmed.
Ahmed,
Corrupt Thai billionaire? There is NO such thing
haha.
The fact that this has happened and you are writing about it as many others are as well marks a considerable change in how things in the football world as well as the sporting world could drive significant changes. MFC is just a first iteration to what new ideas and concepts will span from this event. Much like global corporations are run with shareholders, it would seem to me that people investing would want some return so maybe the model should be adjusted?…just thinking out loud.
Of course, you need the experts that are running the daily business of the club to make decisions however; maybe this brings up the circumstance of much greater accountability of club management? I don’t know but, it’s sure interesting to me what will progress from this event.
I think it is a great new innovation, and I can see new site’s or company’s copying this nice little idea.
Really, I was going to put some cash in so I could own a bit but It is too late now.
Also, Leeds Utd were nagotiating with MFC as well as Nottingham County!!
I think it is a great idea for the smaller clubs, but not for the larger clubs. The smaller more unknown clubs can benefit from the attention and amount of money that is coming into the club from “investors”, but I am curious to see how it will all play out over time with the 50,000+ members voting on the squad. Great article Ahmed.
If Ebbsfleet are playing really bad, after picking the team, Do their supporters start singing “We don’t know what we’re doin!”
Fabulous piece Ahmed. The proof is of course in the pudding. The guys at thepeoplesclub.com reckon they will buy a club by the end of the season, so it looks like this supporter ownership thing is gathering momentum.