Police direct Gold Coast United fans after they stormed a closed off area of stadium. AAP Image/Dave Hunt.
The past few weeks have seen significant problems regarding A-League ownership bubble to the surface. A number of articles have been written and there is no doubt more intrigue yet to unfold.
The A-League ownership issue can be explored in terms of a number of different aspects.
Firstly, there is the cultural perspective to A-League ownership and the culture of bid/ownership assessment.
The FFA are excessively business-centric in their outlook, to the point where I am concerned that there is a Business groupthink problem.
During the bidding process for ownership of clubs there is often much talk about bidders having to satisfy “Business Plans”. However, a Business Plan is only one side of the coin.
Effective football club ownership is half a sociological exercise of sorts, and there is a deficit of football and sociological knowledge within the FFA.
There does not appear to be an extensive “sociological plan” on a par with the FFA’s “Business Plans” spelling out social engagement requirements of A-League owners or bidders.
Ben Buckley and Archie Fraser, and John O’Neill and Matt Carroll before them, both teams from AFL and Rugby Union, can hardly be expected to be able to scrutinise any prospective A-League owner on whether their club models will effectively enable teams to become deeply entrenched within their respective communities because they do not understand how football fans fuse with their clubs.
The cultural outlook of the FFA needs to be adjusted, where clubs are understood as joint cultural and Business institutions.
Secondly, there is the inter-related aspect of ownership structure.
Traditionally, the FFA have only preferred to deal with accomplished Business people in a private ownership model, people who speak the ‘same language’ and there has been no scope for alternatives.
This is now understood as being problematic as it obviously isn’t working as effectively as would be ideal. Now there is talk of broad based ownership models.
In terms of North Queensland Fury, the notion of getting a plethora of small and medium sized businesses to share ownership quite broadly is being seriously explored. This has merit as evidenced by the Central Coast Mariners model and hopefully can be practically implemented.
What I would like to raise is the place of supporter ownership and the prospective place of Supporters Trusts.
The organisation of the football fanbase is still at embryonic stage. Part of this is because in A-League terms FFA policies have not been conducive to fan communities and institutions developing around A-League clubs.
Normally, despite being smaller in numbers, Home Ends and active fan communities are where the organisational ability of fans traditionally develops.
Of course, the marketing language used over the years suggests the FFA merely see A-League as ‘spectators’ and in consumer terms only.
One gets the feeling that active fans are seen as useful for marketing purposes and product differentiation but need to be overbearingly controlled and limited because their culture is mutually exclusive to the family demographic predominantly on the wings.
There needs to be an adjustment in outlook.
Referring to the Bundesliga for a moment to illustrate the point, Each Bundesliga club has traditionally has a Fan Project attached, focuses outside of match times and aimed at ensuring stable relations between club and fans which helps to facilitate a rich but more moderate and non-violent of football culture.
Secondly, through Convertible terracing, standing and active fandom is not only encouraged but potently facilitated.
Far from being a “threat” that needs to be tackled with anti-terrorist firms with no background in football and banning orders, these are very important conduits to facilitating new youth fans into attending live football (as opposed to merely watching on television) and getting them “fixed” on the live experience so that they attend more consistently (and in turn tell others via word of mouth).
This, in turn, means a strong community develops around the club and extends outside of match times.
This can often be threatening, because after all it means fans are more able to organise in such a way to constructively criticise administrator policy which can be a nuisance, but it also ensures a healthily attended and vibrant national league which is the bigger priority.
In terms of supporters Trusts, although the Australian fan fraternity is still some way from having this capacity, a healthy community surrounding a club can give rise to the beginnings of a Supporters Trust which can also be joined by fans who sit on the wings.
If we take Eammonn Flanagan’s Canberra example, 2000 people pledging $200 is $200,000 and proof that there is some grassroots funding capability in this country based around a sense of community (as opposed to “franchise brand”).
$200 is the cost of only one away trip.
Considering the amount of money that goes into alcohol at matches as well, if a fan Trust in Australia was to have staggered payment system it shouldn’t be too difficult (in theory anyway) for highly motivated people to sustain annually on top of their season ticket costs.
But the issue at the moment is that there are no longer many highly motivated people left as disillusionment from negative fan experience breeds apathy and down in Melbourne.
The positives of a Supporters Trust is that it means there is less of a vacuum if a Tana, a Bianco, a Matheson or perhaps a Palmer pulls outs.
Meaning less FFA money to prop up the club but also maintains engagement of fans.
Les Murray has suggested a more “community based model” as in Spain in some of his recent blogs such as “give fury to the people”.
Although well intended, this has problems. The fans should be more involved than merely voting for President.
As is the case with the lower tiers of English football, the aim should be to purchase and maintain annual investment in enough of the “Franchise” to be able to have a position on the clubs board.
As well as bringing rich football knowledge and connectedness to the grassroots they also bring continuous scrutiny on club decisions (hopefully avoiding prohibitive pricing), and a platform for constructive scrutiny of the FFA’s governance performance.
Hopefully this will avoid the amateurish mistakes that have come about due to a deficit of football people.
Not to mention enough influence over relations with other stakeholders, such as stadiums.
The fact that fans are actually now invested in the structure of the game will mean they have responsibilities, plus an interest in maintaining non-destructive behaviour at matches as well.
Although it may seem like a “Pipe Dream”, it is becoming increasingly clear that there needs to be a tweaking of the governance structures and cultural outlook if football and the A-League is to be healthy and vibrant.
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