Tuesday, 7 June 2011

Investment in football

I have this strange urge. It is made worse if someone says 'don't be daft'. And it doesn't go away. It is not actually illegal, although you are likely to be taken to one side and asked 'are you sure?' as if you are thinking of embarking on a somewhat dodgy liaison.

I want to invest some money. More specifically, I want to invest some money in a football club.

I actually did this some years ago and didn't come to any harm. In fact, I made a profit of about 43% in just over 3 years which compares rather favourably with the annual 0.5% interest I currently get on a bank deposit account.

Of course not all investments return this sort of profit and I am not going to say you should risk more than you could afford to lose. And there are many considerations to take into account.

But the point is that I could not do this with the same club today even if I wished to. And neither could many other fans with other clubs.

Why is this? Put simply, the clubs are not prepared to offer their shares to small (in financial terms!) investors. If you could afford to spend a few million pounds, you would probably be welcomed with an open receipt book.

But recall that, except in very advanced mathematics, x times y = y times x. So, for example, 20 000 people subscribing £500 each produces the same total money as 500 people each providing £20 000 or indeed one person investing £10 million. Most chairmen would probably prefer the one rich person - much more cosy and lower management costs - at least until the lonely one aligns himself with other directors to boot out the chairman!

Vote-hungry politicians would probably, and often do, side with the fans. But in the current economic climate, can we realistically expect MPs to look at low-priority problems such as some football fans feeling unloved?

If the football club of choice (West Ham United) is not prepared to receive your investment, is there an alternative club nearby which might be more accommodating?

Well, it just so happens that a mere six stations east along the District Line from Upton Park, lies Dagenham East station. And if you head north from the station, the fifth road on the left (Victoria Road) is the home of Dagenham & Redbridge FC.

Next season Dagenham & Redbridge will be playing in Football League Division 2 and although the ground is small, they might just be able to accommodate a few refugees from the other club a short distance to the west.

We shall see!

Monday, 6 June 2011

The appointment of a ******* football manager

A dream or a nightmare?

The following application has been received.

I would like to be considered for the position of manager of **** *** ****** and would respectfully draw your attention to the following points in support of my application.

My experience in the Premiership has been gained quickly by not spending more than a year or two at a club before moving on to fresh challenges. No time to get stale, no ******* about!

It has enabled me to translate and yell 'Get rid of the ******* ball!' in more than a dozen languages - a simple instruction which has been greatly appreciated, particularly by the players for whom English is not a first language.

I have always placed great emphasis on the ability to get the ball forward quickly. So it's one big hoof into the opponents' half, preferably into their penalty area and even occasionally into their goal! No wasting time with pretty passing like ******* Barcelona! Leave the pretty stuff for the testimonial games.

My gum-chewing technique has been learnt from close observation of S** A*** F******* and has been found helpful in relaxing the tension when the team goes 5-0 down in the first half. No, I never watch myself on television so I don't see and I don't care how disgusting it looks!

I am a strong supporter of the conventions. What is said and done in the changing-room stays in the changing-room. Except of course when it appears in my book! And this would be a good opportunity to mention the unfortunate publicity regarding a young lady who was allegedly receiving my attentions. She referred to being on the game which at the time I thought referred to my interest in football.

As a parent myself, I believe I have the skills to cope with the immature behaviour sometimes associated with the modern player. What I would say is get it out of your system on the pitch. A crunching tackle or two during the game and then you won't need to repeat it later in the clubs.

I hope I can assume that the usual support staff will be available at the club: padre, parking atendant, pastoral guidance officer, personal trainer, pharmacist, physiotherapist, physician, psychologist, publicist, and that's just the p's.

I presume that the importance of the position would be rewarded by a substantial salary and bonuses, a chauffeured limousine for my exclusive use, free medical care, an appropriate personal pension, and a contract not inferior to that of S** A**** F*******. The precise details will of course be negotiated by my agent.

Further details may be obtained from my ghosted autobiography 'On the touchline' which is to be published shortly.

Thank you for your application. Unfortunately on this occasion we are unable to offer you a position with our club. May we respectfully suggest that you may find that employment with FIFA is more appropriate to your talents.


Wednesday, 1 June 2011

Who owns football?

Or, as it might have been written, ¿Quién posee el fútbol?

'Who Owns Football? - The Governance and Management of the Club Game Worldwide'
(ISBN 978-0-415-44570-2)
Edited by David Hassan and Sean Hamil
First published by Routledge in 2011
Based on articles first available in 'Soccer and Society' vol. 11.4
£76 from Amazon

This is a slim academic volume, with fewer than 200 pages, but the densely written and analytical text requires time and effort to do justice to the wealth of information and ideas which the the book contains.

In the Introduction: models of football governance and management in international sport (David Assan and Sean Hamil), the invigorating thoughts of Michel Platini are followed by an introduction to the collection of seven articles, only three of which (1, 4 and 7) are perhaps strictly relevant to the aims of this blog.

1. Financial performance in English professional football: 'an inconvenient truth'
Sean Hamil and Geoff Walters

Question section 1
Between the 1992/3 and 2006/7 seasons, the combined annual turnover of the Premier League clubs increased by 900%. In how many of these seasons did the combined Premier League clubs make a collective pre-tax profit?

4. Who owns England's game? American professional sporting influences and foreign ownership in the Premier League
John Nauright and John Ramfjord

Question section 4
How many Premier League football clubs (2010-11) are owned by investors based outside the UK?

7. The model of governance at FC Barcelona: balancing member democracy, commercial strategy, corporate social responsibility and sporting performance
Sean Hamil, Geoff Walters and Lee Watson

The best section is left till last. Here you will find a blueprint for the club of your dreams. Return to it again and again when your club behaves in a lesser way.

Question section 7
How many socios had FC Barcelona on 30 June 2008?

The verdict?
At around £80 to buy, perhaps it might be thought expensive for a book. But looked at another way, it does not cost significantly more than attending a Premier League game. Or, even in these hard times. you might be able to find a library which has it on its shelves.

This is a book to be cherished.

Appendix: answers to questions

Section 1: none of these years

Section 4: 10 (at 5 March 2011: Aston Villa, Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers, Chelsea, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Sunderland, Tottenham Hotspur).

Section 7: 162,979 on 30 June 2008 (175,071 on 29 August 2010).

Saturday, 25 September 2010

An Olympian view

This is a distraction, I know, and has little to do with the main aim of this blog. But it has something to do with the thoughts of at least some of the directors of West Ham. And even a tentative post might help to clarify one's ideas.

As I understand it, there might be some benefit to West Ham from playing football at the Olympic Stadium. This of course would be quite different from the benefit to the directors (aka the shareholders) of being able to dispose of the present ground. They may even have already mentioned the idea to some of their business contacts, in a general sort of way, naturally, and nothing specific at this stage.

But how do Olympic Park and Upton Park compare?

Location
Upton Park (the station) is quite isolated if the District line is not running. Some years ago at the end of the game, the 500 m walk from the ground to the station coincided with the complete collapse of the railway service. And so began the great trek by refugee Hammers to West Ham station, over 2 km away, where the Jubilee line was still functioning.

Olympic Park is served by so many railway lines that only an international outrage of the most appalling kind would stop them all, and we certainly wouldn't be thinking of football, and probably of not much else either.

Olympic Park 1  Upton Park 0

Local amenities
Upton Park has had plenty of time to provide for all the (fairly) respectable needs of football fans, from food and drink to a sheltered fence if the call of nature becomes too urgent. Most fans do not expect much, and that is what they get - not much.

From the artists' illustrations, Olympic Park looks a little too civilised. Never mind. It will soon change as the fans do what fans have to do.

But there may be one problem. The cost of constructing Olympic Park will probably be reflected in the prices charged by franchisees for food, drink and entertainment.

Olympic Park 1  Upton Park 1

The atmosphere and the view of the football match
At Upton Park, they are reasonable in most parts of the ground, but the old ones will tell you that it is now nothing like as good as it used to be. But then, it probably never was.

Olympic Park has a problem. It is big, even if some bits are lopped off after the Olympic Games. The problem is not new and the cause is, whisper it, the athletics track.

Olympic Park 1  Upton Park 2

The effect of the weather
And I am not thinking of its effect on the pitch, where grass technology (always excepting any problems at Wembley) is much improved and heavy pitches amd footballs are virtually unknown now.

No, the spectator has got used to being offered protection from the worst of the elements. Only the effect of the cold if you are seated (and prevented from standing, like penguins, packed tightly together), is seriously unpleasant.

But I have been told, by someone who should know, that in the Olympic Stadium, only spectators right at the back in the top few rows will be protected adequately from driving rain. Perhaps this is not important in our summers, but at other times

  • a long way from the action, and

  • soaking wet, and

  • freezing cold?


  • No thank you!

    Olympic Park 1  Upton Park 3



    Saturday, 11 September 2010

    The two sides in football

    The private
    In the West Ham programme for 9 May 2010, David Sullivan (Chairman) wrote:
    'In a few months' time we are considering a general shareholding where supporters can buy shares in the football club.'

    On the West Ham website (13 August 2010), we read that the club has raised £4m in new equity through a placing of shares, primarily with new investors. These include John Harris and Daniel Harris (father and son), and also Terence Brown (former Chairman of the club).

    If necessary, readers will be able to find out a little of the background of Mr Brown by using their favourite search engine. The welcome given by West Ham fans to this news must have been fairly muted.

    Daniel Harris has joined the board as a non-executive director while Terence Brown becomes an honorary life president.

    In case you, and Mr Sullivan, have forgotten, 'in a few months' time we are considering a general shareholding where supporters can buy shares in the football club.'

    But perhaps not ordinary supporters.

    The public
    This side was represented by Members of Parliament speaking on behalf of their constituents in the Adjournment Debate on 8 September 2010: (the) role of football supporters in the governance of professional football clubs.

    The debate was well attended by MPs, both listening and speaking, and also by club supporters in the visitors' area.

    It was opened by Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab) who has the distinction of having two premiership clubs (Everton and Liverpool) in his constituency. The debate showed that MPs are well aware of both the importance of football in the life of their constituents and the nature of the problems which need to be tackled, particularly in connection with premiership clubs.

    One gained the impression that MPs would be quite prepared to support the introduction of a legal requirement that supporters, if they wished, should be able to gain control of their clubs.

    The bridge?
    West Ham is currently owned by WH Holding Limited, a private limited company This structure is not appropriate for a large number of small shareholders.

    But the most obvious alternative, a public limited company, would probably be unacceptable to the present owners.

    What is needed is an intermediate body in which supporters could invest, and from which they could withdraw if necessary, sums of the order of £500 to £1 000 in absolute safety, until the money could be used to buy shares in the main company.

    Finally, these members would be able, if they wished, to exchange the value of their investment for benefits of equal value provided by the main company, now the members' body.

    Between the idea
    And the reality
    Between the motion
    And the act
    Falls the Shadow.

    T. S. Eliot



    Tuesday, 31 August 2010

    A political solution for football?

    Since July 2009, the posts in this blog have tried to indicate what I think may be a better way to run professional football clubs in England. In the lower divisions of the Football League and in non-league clubs, there has been some progress but usually only when a club has reached financial desperation.

    In the Premier League, the clubs and the sums involved are so much larger that only an incremental approach is likely to be effective. Recently both Manchester United and Liverpool supporters have tried to change the way their clubs are run, so far without success. The money which would have to be raised is simply too large for a one-stage process.

    There has always been a general recognition of the part that the local football club plays in the life of the community. In the past, there have been several political initiatives intended to promote this connection. I believe politicians have not been unwilling to help and indeed some legislation has been passed to provide assistance. But it has been largely unsuccessful, particularly with the larger clubs. Is there a key to unlock this financial barrier?

    Suppose that instead of trying to raise all the money and transfer ownership in one stage (which would be the usual method in business), a football club could be bought gradually by its supporters. It could probably happen at present, except that, given a choice, the larger clubs would probably prefer not to have to deal with tens of thousands of small shareholders. In other words, they would be very reluctant to change.

    So it has to be plan B. This would require a political initiative to compel a football club to sell a fixed number of shares at an agreed price to any person applying for them. Over time, the number of shares bought and owned in this way would become a majority. The small shareholders could then, if they wished, decide on the next stage of restructuring the company. The model of FC Barcelona might be used to guide them!

    Keen readers will probably find lots of snags in this proposal. So please make your views known, particularly if they include suggestions for improvement. Remember that all six MPs who declared themselves as West Ham supporters replied positively to the original initiative by WHAM!



    Friday, 20 August 2010

    John Sweeney's summer brake?

    Which was the most significant of the footballing stories this summer? Not, I think, except for Spain and South Africa, one concerning the FIFA World Cup. It is true that there were other countries such as England, France and Holland who made the headlines but not, I fear, for their skills on the pitch.

    No, my vote would go to an unlikely source - a Panorama television programme shown on BBC1 on Tuesday 8 July at the unpromising hour of 10.35 pm, just three days before the start of the World Cup.

    John Sweeney, a reporter and Tranmere Rovers fan, had prepared a devastating indictment of English football, particularly of the Premier League where the total debt is now £3.4 billion. This is greater than the total for the rest of European football.

    Supporters of Sweeney's case included:

    Dave Boyle, Chief Executive of Supporters Direct, 'English football (is) groaning under the weight of unsustainable debt';
    Andy Green, financial analyst, 'Glazer core business in USA got it absolutely wrong';
    Dave Wheelan, Chairman, Wigan Athletic FC, 'Got to stop. Debt in Premiership is unsustainable. Wigan next season will break even. No more debt; what goes out must come in'.

    Among the people and organisations who declined to appear (no great surprise!) were:

    The Football Association, the Premier League, David Gill (Chief Executive, Manchester United), the Glazer family (father and six children), and Hugh Robertson (Minister for Sport) who was concentrating on our 2018 bid for the World Cup!

    Football would probably not be top of the list of concerns for the politicians at the moment. But in the end, the solution to football's woes will probably have to be political. Most clubs are unlikely to volunteer to change. Few executives and directors are natural democrats. But change is needed if a financial catastrophe is to be avoided.

    Next time
    A political solution for football?