Sympathetic clubs to manage? Fan owned clubs etc.

[danej]

So, which clubs might be the most sympathetic to manage? And follow in real life for that matter.

 

Personally I do have some preferences regarding this:

1. The club should be owned by the fans. At least the fans should have a shareholding majority. Like the German 50+1 rule. As a worse but perhaps tolerable alternative, the club's elitist owners should at the very least be sympathetic people who care whole-heartedly and consistently about the club and the local community in general. The opposite of the parasite Glazers so to speak.

2. Perhaps not a must, but the club should preferably not have any elitist tendencies in the ownership structure. For example I don't like that at Barcelona only incredibly rich people can become chairman. You have to make a huge financial deposit if you win the election, I don't remember excactly how much, but basically you have to be a billionare or something in order to have any chance of being elected chairman.

 

So, based on these preferences, my suitable candidate clubs for future saves could include clubs like:

- Athletic Club Bilbao

- AFC Wimbledon

- Bayern München, Borussia Dortmund and most other German teams

- Real Madrid

- Aalborg BK (AaB)

- IK Start Kristiansand

 

Objectively the last two clubs are probably worse choices than the others. They aren't fan owned. But as is probably the case with most clubs, most of the shares in these two clubs seem to be owned by well meaning local semi-rich people. Who probably primarily own the shares and fund perpetual financial losses due to a wish to support the local community in the form of one of its most important cultural institutions, the biggest local football club.

 

And I happen to like the two latter clubs because they are located in my two favourite towns/cities in the world. I lived in Aalborg for 9 years and loved the place. I currently live in Kristiansand and love that place as well. They aren't too far apart either, bordering Danish/Norwegian regions, apart by just a 3 hour trip by ferry.

[XaW]

18 minutes ago, danej said:

IK Start Kristiansand

All Norwegian clubs are fan owned (with elections every x years), but a few have essentially "rich uncles" who contribute money, like Molde for example.

I think Odd BK is a nicely driven club, as they want most of their players to come from the surrounding area (Telemark) and they have a lot of deals with local clubs, but I'm not from the area, so I'm going by the general reputation.

[danej]

2 hours ago, XaW said:

All Norwegian clubs are fan owned (with elections every x years), but a few have essentially "rich uncles" who contribute money, like Molde for example.

I think Odd BK is a nicely driven club, as they want most of their players to come from the surrounding area (Telemark) and they have a lot of deals with local clubs, but I'm not from the area, so I'm going by the general reputation.

Interesting. I didn't know that, although I have lived in Norway since 2007. I guess it tells that I bare followed football since then, picked it up again the last six months or so.

 

Are you Norwegian yourself? You seem to know a lot about the country.

Edited August 12, 2022 by danej

[XaW]

1 hour ago, danej said:

Interesting. I didn't know that, although I have lived in Norway since 2007. I guess it tells that I bare followed football since then, picked it up again the last six months or so.

 

Are you Norwegian yourself? You seem to know a lot about the country.

Yeah, I'm Norwegian and sort of follow Norwegian football, but not closely enough, really. I do know a lot about my native country though!  

Here is a few Norwegian articles about the owner structure in Norway that gives a bit more info:

https://www.nettavisen.no/sport/delte-meninger-om-utenlandske-investorer-fotball-er-ikke-en-vanlig-forretning/s/12-95-3424212893

https://www.aftenposten.no/sport/fotball/i/6zbLqL/fotballreglene-ingen-foelger-med-paa

As you can read from those articles there has been talk about changing it the last few years.

[danej]

Sad if they consider changing. Fan ownership is usually the best I think.

[danej]

Interesting that the Aftenposten article has quite a bit about IK Start Kristiansand. I haven't followed the club, or very many clubs, much untill recently. But I got the same feeling from reading the local Kristiansand newspaper Fædrelandsvennen. Seems like many locals are annoyed with the shareholding company owning the club, feel like they sometimes bend the rules. And this article seems to suggest that the criticism is spot on. No wonder that IK Start has struggled for many years if the locals are mostly displeased with the current ownership structure.

 

Generally sad reading. Seems like the rules are being ignored quite frequently and that the Norwegian fan ownership structure is weakening.

[Overmars]

You also have English teams such as Bath and Exeter that are fan-owned. Wikipedia has a full list of English clubs that are fan-owned. A lot of them are smaller clubs, but that can be fun to build up as well.

I think Wimbledon is the ultimate choice, though it's tough to take them to any sort of Premier League glory if you stick to the fan-owned domestic player small club vision.

[kentonizking]

Forest Green are a good shout. Eco friendly and vegan and a very 'modern' 'person centred' club 

[el_manayer]

Lol Real Madrid is basically a rich mafia, specially with Florentino. I am surprised you discarded Barcelona and not Madrid by those criteria (not a Barcelona fan either, just in case). And to be honest, only incredibly rich people become chairman of any tier 1/2 clubs (at least in Spain)

[danej]

17 hours ago, Overmars said:

You also have English teams such as Bath and Exeter that are fan-owned. Wikipedia has a full list of English clubs that are fan-owned. A lot of them are smaller clubs, but that can be fun to build up as well.

I think Wimbledon is the ultimate choice, though it's tough to take them to any sort of Premier League glory if you stick to the fan-owned domestic player small club vision.

Could you be more specific about that vision? I mean, what would save restrictions entail? Anything else besides buying only domestic players?

[danej]

16 hours ago, el_manayer said:

Lol Real Madrid is basically a rich mafia, specially with Florentino. I am surprised you discarded Barcelona and not Madrid by those criteria (not a Barcelona fan either, just in case). And to be honest, only incredibly rich people become chairman of any tier 1/2 clubs (at least in Spain)

I don't know very much about football. So my lack of knowledge is the answer I am afraid. I read the stuff about Barcelona somewhere. I didn't read the same about Real Madrid but I trust you.

 

I wonder how it is in other big, seemingly fan owned clubs. Such as Bayern and Dortmund. Where they stink when you scratch the surface, like Barcelona and Real Madrid seem to do.

[JAwtunes]

Maybe Chertanovo Moscow - they only promote from their youth system or re-sign former academy graduates (I believe), so similar to Bilbao. I think you'd need to activate the lower leagues now as they were relegated from the 2nd tier.  Also worth noting the ban on Russian clubs in UEFA club competitions.

There is a team in the lower leagues in Austria called SKV Syrien Wien that someone else on the forum mentioned has Syrian youth intakes.  I'm purely speculating, but I wouldn't be surprised if the team was set up by Syrian refugees as a result of the civil war (according to the db they were established in 2018).  You would need a customs database with the lower leagues in Austria activated for this team to be playable.

[Bruce Drundrige]

On 13/08/2022 at 23:14, Overmars said:

You also have English teams such as Bath and Exeter that are fan-owned. Wikipedia has a full list of English clubs that are fan-owned. A lot of them are smaller clubs, but that can be fun to build up as well.

I think Wimbledon is the ultimate choice, though it's tough to take them to any sort of Premier League glory if you stick to the fan-owned domestic player small club vision.

If the OP is looking for a club that is supporter owned with no rich person input then Exeter City are the perfect example as they are majority owned by their supporters trust. They won promotion to League One last season, are debt free, and 6 of their starting line-up in their first home game of the season were from the club academy (and a seventh, also the club captain, was on the bench).

Community involvement and supporter ownership are central to their model, as is developing young players to not only play in the first team but bring in transfer fees (Matt Grimes, Ethan Ampadu, Ollie Watkins to name just three).

Slightly different model, but Heart of Midlothian are basically funded by their supporters through their contribution model.

Greenock Morton FC in the Scottish Championship are also now majority owned by their supporter trust/fund if you're looking for a proper challenge.