The road to ruin

Several months ago, some bright spark decided that he wanted to buy a football club. The only downside to his clever scheme was that he didn't quite have the cash needed to get started, so he called in some help.








Pretty quickly, MyFootballClub.co.uk was born. All that was needed was for 50,000 people to stump-up £35 for a controlling interest in a then unnamed football club. The only clue was a set of criteria for which the eventual club would meet.

A vote ran between members to pick their preferred take-over target, with Leeds United the number one choice. Unfortunately, they failed one of the key criteria which was to have "no or manageable debt", even if most of it is located in an unknown tax-haven on the British Virgin Isles.

Today, after attracting the required number, the website confirmed an agreement to purchase Blue Square Premier side Ebbsfleet United, with the site members now taking a 51% stake in the club, subject to the finer points being sorted out.

In essence, a supporters membership scheme is a good idea. It works in various sports at various levels across Europe. My local amateur rugby league team Bramley Buffaloes has one, so does FC Barcelona. They can be a very good way of running a football club.

But this scheme, unfortunately, is doomed to disaster.

Unlike your typical membership scheme, where supporters / members get to vote on internal issues, this scheme is asking for something a bit more.

They are wanting a say in team selection, transfer dealings, team tactics - virtually everything you can think of.

I can see it now - scores of fans squabbling over what formation to play in their Tuesday night match at Aldershot or which 35-year-old+ League Two player to sign in the transfer window. It truly is a case of the lunatics taking over the asylum and at this level of football, where the knowledge will be minimal at best, it's practically suicidal.

I've worked in a professional sports club. (I have to keep that quiet, for I'm a supporter of their main rivals!) and one of the first thing you learn is that as a supporter, you know nothing about how sports clubs actually run. Most supporters only see what happens on that big green thing every Saturday afternoon and nothing more. Fans always think they know what to do, very rarely is that the case and Australian rugby league coach Wayne Bennett summed it up: "If you start listening to the fans, it's not long before you're sitting with them".

You could argue that Bradford City are finding that out the hard way. After being relegated last year, the club chairman was looking to bring the 'feel-good factor' back to Valley Parade.

Along with cut-price season tickets, the chairman appointed the fans choice as the new manager and former players Stuart McCall and Wayne Jacobs were installed as the new management team. Today, one of the pre-season favourites sit in 19th in League Two, with just four wins from 15.

My suspicions are that most of the people who have actually signed up to this scheme don't realise what actually goes on away from the playing field, thinking instead that running a football club is just a big version of a Football Manager PC game. The situation that you have now is that instead of having a fully qualified and experienced football coach making the on-field decisions, you've now got a bunch of strangers who's only achievement between them is that they managed to win the Premier League with Mansfield Town on their PC and that one of them came top of the Fantasy Football League last April in the Sun newspaper.

I do feel sorry for Ebbsfleet. I saw them when they arrived (25 minutes late) to claim a 1-1 draw at Farsley Celtic in the BlueSQ Premier this season and whilst they were no superstars by any stretch, they were a decent side.

I hope this comes off for them and there's no doubt that the publicity will but the club in the spotlight. There is also of course, the argument that such a scheme is taking the game away from the money men and back to the fans, which is a valid one. There is however, a very good reason why 'fans' tend not to be the money men behind a football club and as sad as it may be, I can only see this ending in tears.