As the ownership troubles involving Bury and Bolton continue, Sky Sports News examines the fan-owned models adopted by some clubs.
Bury were expelled from Sky Bet League One week with the EFL after C&N Sporting Risk pulled out of a planned takeover of the team.
Together with the EFL now prepared to go over their readmission into the Football League, Gary Neville, who has links with Bury urged Shakers lovers secure the future of their club and to take control.
Bury’s two MPs, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and fans society Bury are part of a working class looking to secure that your club’s standing in League Two next season.
Meanwhile, the Bolton were on the verge of liquidation week until Football Ventures’ takeover was confirmed.
The team needed 14 days to secure their or risk expulsion in the EFL.
Together with the Well Society supporters group, Motherwell turned into a fan-owned Scottish Premiership side in 2016.
St Mirren were shot over the year, following a joint bid from their former director Gordon Scott along with the St Mirren Independent Supporters Association.
They are just two examples at football clubs of influence and fan ownership, Stirling Albion were the first club.
While the Pars Trust saved from potential and government oblivion in 2013 Dunfermline Athletic, East Stirlingshire and clyde have comparable arrangements. Annan Athletic appeared to become fully.
Two footballing giants have also adopted the idea .
Businesswoman Ann Budge discharged from administration in 2014 heart of Midlothian.
Budge is supposed to hand her shareholding around to the supporters’ group Foundation of Hearts, that can make Hearts the football club in the UK.
Budge will stay on for at least a year to ensure a smooth transition, from which point Hearts fans will call all the shots.
In 2015, Hibernian declared plans across Edinburgh to present their fans the chance to own at least 51 percent of club stocks, but the landscape has shifted at Easter Road lately.
US businessman Ron Gordon purchased majority shareholder Tom Farmer during the summertime, but fans now own around a third of shares in Hibernian.
This week, a Partick Thistle supporters team have launched their campaign to take control of the Scottish Championship club.
Thistle For Ever say they plan to secure a vast majority shareholding for lovers of the Firhill facet due to speculation about a potential sale to a consortium”with no connections to the club or its community”.
Supporters groups already own nearly 27 percent of the club’s shares, and this campaign is looking to bring a further 24 per cent, by creating an offer to all current shareholders to sell to their fans.
The move comes after EuroMillions lottery winner Colin Weir withdrew his financial support following boardroom changes, while speculation has been rife that the proprietors of Barnsley are currently still negotiating to get Thistle month to the team and academy.
Sky Sports News talked to compare and contrast their own ideas.
It’s the heart and soul of why you’re involved with soccer; all you want is the most appropriate for your club.
I think we are concerned (about Patrick Thistle’s potential ). We were told about a bargain coming but no details have emerged.
We have gone from a situation in which we had a benefactor donating much to the team (lottery winner Chris Weir, who has since walked away), without a debt, to now a place of doubt.
We own almost 30 per cent of their club already. If this group of directors are Partick Thistle investors that are real, we give an alternative to those who may choose the club in a different way, that could get it vested over the community.
We’re debt-free. We must be playing within our means.
I think fan ownership is we’ve seen it up to clubs Hearts’ dimensions, it functions. I really believe it can be adopted, but you have got to look at who’s in charge.
Our hearts go out to them at Bolton and Bury. It’s got to come out of your fans, they will need to galvanise themselves and also find the community together; it happened previously at Exeter City and Wimbledon that were difficult circumstances in England.
Expertise and the knowledge is there to do it wasn’t ten to fifteen decades.
What worked (in Motherwell) was having control. The key to everything at soccer clubs is control. We had good help from Les Hutchison in procuring the club, and the situation was that worked, and we needed to cover Les back.
The Motherwell academy has done surprisingly well, it is a blueprint for Scottish football generally. You merely have to look there that have attracted income to the club.
This time, we’ve assembled a squad that we have not been able to do before. A lot of the lads performed and stepped up for it and also have come .
Motherwell is a community clubwe have 2700 members in the Well Society. I got my newsletter in another day, telling me just how much I’ve put into the bar, asking for contributions and ideas… you are a part of it.
I think that is what fans really want, they do not want to be on the exterior if someone will come in with huge dollars to spare their club, being worried, like Bury or Bolton.
The first barrier is belief. Paul Goodwin and I were in a Motherwell match and we had been talking to folks there, who had been regular Motherwell fans.
They were individuals who financially could manage to contribute to the Well Society and the team , but once we spoke to them they said,”Oh, that’s a bit pie in the sky.”
They did not really believe that the fans could grow in influence and ownership and purchase up shares from the bar. You’ve got a say at the club, although you may not have the club, even if it inching percentage by percentage. I think that is crucial.
Getting people to believe they can change things, and getting people to believe that’s possible, it’s a major hurdle. It would not do anything and astonished me how people were shuffling their feet.
We had a owner (former chairman Stewart Gilmour) who’d wished to market up for a long time, and there was no real possibility of anybody coming – no shining knight in armour!
The enthusiasts put their money together and discovered someone who would take that obligation (present chairman Gordon Scott) then pay back that money.
There was that doubt there, you did not know who was planning to come together and attempt to purchase the club. We have seen plenty of people buy clubs come along and desert them again after months or years accountable.
Having that ownership gives you that sort of certainty rather than anything else.
Fan possession in itself is new. Maybe some people think they will have more control because of their investment.
That sense that this is no longer a business, it’s a neighborhood and it goes to you today, that is the thing that’s definitely worked.
These clubs, even the ones that aren’t businesses, don’t actually have much more of an alternative. These are neighborhood clubs; Bury was never going to be in Europe.
St Mirren are not ever likely to be in Europe, we have those fantasies… but they’re about the fans and that area. Nobody is likely to make money.
It appears common belief that since those nightclubs are on the community and from the general public, why are not they owned by the community?
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