Is Fan Ownership The Way Forward?

How would the club be run? Exactly as now. The AGM every year the membership would turn up and elect (or re-elect as the case may be) each board member, the Chairman, the Chief Executive. The AGM would be conducted exactly as before. Throughout the rest of the year Peter Lawell would run the club exactly as he has been done. My OP stands. The only difference is that we get the members money every year, nothing else will change. I used golf clubs as an example only.

Even if we only get a miserable 5000 members at £200 per annum, it is still £1m we would not have had which cost us nothing. True, a share buyback would be expensive, to which we would need to borrow a large sum of money from the bank. It would only be viable if the repayments could be met from the members money alone and not out of the clubs normal income to the detriment of the paying squad. I think, however, that we would be bale to muster 10s of thousands, even 100,000. Remember this is a worldwide appeal.

 

100% YES from me.

 

i think the idea has merit but it would also have many problems.

perhaps the answer is to leave the investment side alone but to restructure the club policy vote. This could be done by having the fans getting a 51% voting block free of charge with 100% of the investors controlling the other 49%.

this would mean the investors could never go against the fans wishes.

Only problem is the investors would not like the idea despite many of them claiming they only want what is best for the club/ fans etc. No easy answer on the question of fan ownership..... but there should at least be a platform to discuss this with the club and the board. Maybe that should be the starting point

 

How about this.
At start of each season when the clamour for season tickets happens, Celtic MUST release shares to the season ticket holders and leave it up to the ST holders to take up that option when renewing the ST book.
Say for example Celtic release 100,000 shares each season at £10 each and 50,000 Celtic supporters buy 2 shares each. That would be £1M.
The share money from those goes to pay bank debt thereby NOT interfering with player budget and would have the bonus of each fan getting shares in the club thereby allowing them to gain a vote at the AGM if they wished to use it.
If fans didn't want the shares then other fans could take up the option to buy them .After a set period any unbought shares could be bought by the board at that point.

 

You cannot run a business by committee a benevolent dictatorship probably works best.Would we have the legacy today if it had'nt been for Fergus Mcann although he probably was'nt a "benevolent dictator".Our present board is probably as good as its going to get considering our present position.

 

Under this model nobody is ever likely to invest in us again. After all, there are many things that we as fans want that aren't viable in the financial climate of the SPFL. Also, just look at the recent furor surrounding the Green Brigade. A large number of fans support them despite the increasing likelihood of fines due to their actions - which many investors would not want to see. They need to know they aren't just chucking their money away.

This is exactly why fan ownership at big clubs does not work. All it takes is a a board of investors who do not think as one fan does and pretty soon there are accusations that they are not doing best for the club. Again, I use the GB as my example to show this. What happens if we elect fans who either support or oppose them, against the clear wishes of an apparent majority? Do we then moan that they are not fans because their views differ from our own, or do we accept their judgement because they are also fans?

Unfortunately, there is too much division in our ranks for a board controlled by fans to be ultimately effective. That being said, it would be nice to have more fans on the board. Not a majority but at least a third.

 

the only other way to get a large consensus is to have one man one vote irrespective of the amount of shares owned.

if the board/ club are not willing to discuss any proposals then it will never go anywhere so perhaps supporters clubs could ask for some meetings to see if there is any willingness on the part of the club and if there is then get shareholders involved.

fans as a group would find it very hard to buy out existing shareholders and our best chances of helping to drive policy probably lies with a single united body to represent our wishes....... football without the fans is nothing........ only if we stick together can we make that statement a fact

 

Not a chance. Should we be given more of a say in the running of the club ? Of course. Not fan ownership though. I wouldn't want to see in-fighting and bickering among groups of shareholders holding the club back.

 

51% rule like in germany would be ideal.

 

We have far too many fans sharing the same brain cell for it to work.