From
http://www.facebook.com/transparencyinfootball?ref=nf#!/transparencyinfootball
1. Who we are
We are a group of regular football supporters who care passionately
about the issue of transparency of ownership in football. We are
committed to work with fans of all clubs, all supporters’ organisations,
the football authorities and politicians of every hue, to achieve our
objective as set out below. It is intended to bring the fans influence
to bear in a businesslike manner and at the highest possible levels. We
are encouraged that the indications are that we may increasingly be
pushing at an open door and that the need for change is becoming more
widely recognised.
2. What we are seeking to achieve, and why
At the core of our beliefs we believe that football supporters have a
very real stake in their football clubs, and that this is linked very
closely to the issue of who owns the club. The stake of the supporter is
difficult to specify but it is fundamental to the identity of any
football club. The football supporter embodies the very heart and soul
of the club. Supporting a football club is not akin to any other
transactional relationship with a supplier eg customers of Tesco. Unlike
where we shop for our groceries, ninety nine per cent of us do not have
a choice of who we support, it is ingrained in us, and that loyalty is
what drives us to support our club through the bad times and hand over a
large proportion of our earnings to do this. When we as supporters refer
to "my" or "our" football club we talk not of legal ownership but of
something much deeper, more fundamental, and of far greater importance.
We talk in similar terms of "my" county, "my" city or "my" country.
There is no pretence of legal ownership here. We can take a pride in our
town or city but do not own it. We can have deep feelings for our home
county but do not own it. If the importance of this is in any doubt it
should be remembered that millions of people have laid down their lives
for "their" country with not the slightest sense of legal ownership. If
we must talk of legal ownership then it is time to recognise that
football clubs are, in reality, local monopolies. Their customers have
very little (or no) choice. Every economist and every politician will
recognise the fact that monopolies cannot be allowed to operate just
like any other business. They recognise that special rules are needed
and very special watch needs to be kept so that monopolists do not
exploit their position or their customers. By accepting that football
clubs are monopolistic businesses then we may be able to rid ourselves
of the false argument that they are just like any other private business
and that they should be entitled to operate without greater controls
being placed upon them for the common good of their customers. Clubs do
not operate in a true free market and the special economic status that
they enjoy requires additional controls above and beyond those which
apply to genuinely free market business operations.
Investors and the Board of Directors of a club come and go but the
supporters are constant, usually throughout their entire lives. In
return we believe this merits openness at the very least. To put it
another way, football supporters deserve protection from those who might
seek to exploit their loyalty. In short, as football supporters, we want
to know who owns our club. Open public disclosure of the ultimate
beneficiaries of club ownership should NOT be optional, but instead it
should be a mandatory requirement for Football League participation.
With this transparency should come greater accountability. When a club
is not being run in the correct manner, supporters would know where to
go for answers.
3. How we intend to take this forward
On the basis that the supporters of a club are likely to "know" their
own clubs management and owners better than anyone else, we intend to
mobilise those fans, quietly and peacefully, so that at each FL club the
fans themselves can ascertain as far as is possible, where their own
club stands on the question of mandatory public disclosure (of ownership).
This information will be collated so that the trend of opinion
throughout FL clubs may be gauged. The results of this exercise cannot
be pre-judged but our objective is to help bring about a change in
Football League rules so that the open public disclosure of the ultimate
beneficiaries of a clubs ownership ceases to be optional but instead
becomes a mandatory requirement for all FL clubs.
In parallel to the above, our group will be working to encourage a
change in perceptions both on a political level and throughout football
as a whole so that there is a wider acceptance of the concept of
supporter "ownership" of the club (as opposed to legal ownership of the
business), and of the acceptance that football clubs are local
monopolies which require a special oversight and control and which
should not be completely free to exploit their monopoly positions.
We will seek support and cooperation from the national supporter
organisations – Supporters Direct and The Football Supporters
Federation, and seek support from local and national politicians of
every hue and at the highest possible levels.
Not least, we will encourage individual fans to add their voices to this
initiative. We ask them to sign up on our facebook page and, should they
feel it appropriate, to bring pressure to bear locally to help ensure
that the national mood swings to mandatory full open disclosure and the
achievement of our objective
_______________________________________________
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