Community Ownership of Football Clubs in Scotland

COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP 2014

Why Community Ownership?

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here are several key benefits to community ownership. Below are some of the areas in which such an ownership structure can greatly benefit a football club and its supporters.

Strategic Partnerships • It allows clubs to develop deeper and more long-term strategic partnerships.

• A greater sense of shared agendas and partnerships between local authorities, clubs and business.

• Ownership structure and increased transparency helps build trust between organisations.

• Easier for supporter community owned clubs to align agendas with public or private strategic partners, meeting strategic objectives.

Finance • Community ownership creates a greater sense of financial responsibility. An increased recognition for clubs to live within their means.

• It allows clubs to raise finance in other, more innovative ways. Such as through ‘Community Shares’.

• Placing clubs in the hands of supporters allows more transparency in terms of clubs’ finances and makes relevant information more accessible to fans.

COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP REPORT 2014

community ownership facts and figures

Sponsorship • Sponsors are attracted to community owned clubs due to their high attendance figures when compared with competitors at the same level; e.g. FC United of Manchester and AFC Wimbledon.

• It is also the reputational value of sponsors being associated with a club owned by its’ supporters that is added value for sponsors.

• Reputational value can help to forge longer-term relationships between club and sponsor.

Transparency, Openness AND Trust • All supporters trust owned clubs have to publish annual accounts which have to be approved by members at their AGM. • Provides a level of scrutiny and recourse for supporters as well as a level of public transparency that is often lacking at other clubs.

• Level of openness and transparency a key factor in developing and maintaining strategic partnerships, notably with public authorities and with fans.

Scottish football has four clubs in Community Ownership....

Stirling Albion

dunfermline athletic

clyde

east stirling

and four clubs close to community ownership... motherwell

heart of midlothian

annan athletic

There are 31 Scottish clubs with Supporters Trusts

ayr united

27,000

*

members of trusts and affiliated groups

There are 18 clubs with supporters on their board

* Including Foundation of Hearts and Pars United.

SUPPORTERS DIRECT SCOTLAND

Community Ownership in scotland

bringing people together

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here are currently four Community owned clubs in senior Scottish football – Stirling Albion, East Stirling, Dunfermline Athletic and Clyde.

Supporters Direct has played a key role in these cases, ensuring that supporters groups were listened to and that the process of moving to a Community ownership model was done in the best interests of the fans. Individual investors can still get something out of involvement in a football club though, through proper engagement with this audience which is so much easier to do when you are working together rather than sitting isolated in the Boardroom.

As we have seen with Dunfermline Athletic and Hearts the supporters are happy to work with the business acumen of the investors and indeed if they help by providing funding to buy the club or the stadiums then supporters are comfortable with these business fans getting rewarded with a reasonable return on their investment.

Supporters Direct Scotland are currently working with clubs such as Heart of Midlothian, Motherwell FC, Kilmarnock FC and Annan Athletic to help promote

COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP REPORT 2014

community ownership and to ensure the long-term future of each club. With the help of the respective supporters’ trusts and fan organisations, SDS is confident on community ownership growing rapidly across Scotland in 2014.

Over the next four months, SDS will be exploring the possibility of the Scottish Green Party’s proposal to extend the community ‘right to buy’ beyond the scope set out in the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003. This would give supporters groups a greater opportunity to purchase a shareholding in their club, or to buy out right.

upporters Direct Scotland not only works with supporters trusts, but also with any and all supporters and fans groups, as well as individuals and businesses interested in community ownership and the work SDS is engaged in.

Each group that SDS works with will have different roles and aims, but all with a common goal relative to their club. We have seen this successfully work at Heart of Midlothian where several supporters groups and local businesses have banded together to help ensure the long-term future of the football club.

“I think it’s essential for supporters to be represented and have their voice heard because without fans, football is nothing. Supporters are the lifeblood of clubs in most cases, both through provision of finance to the clubs but also because of the community and social aspects they provide.”

Stephen Morrow, Senior Lecturer at the University of Stirling

At Kilmarnock FC, the bid to secure the club’s future in the hands of the

supporters has seen several groups involved in proceedings. The Killie (Community) Working Party is made up of five separate entities; • The Killie Trust • The Kilmarnock FC Supporters Association • Minority shareholders in Kilmarnock FC • The Business Club • Young Kilmarnock SDS is able to work with these groups and help them maintain their independence from one another.

Our work with Annan Athletic and Falkirk FC has also seen the use of this strategy of mutually beneficial engagement, with positive results. As has been shown at Hearts, a key benefit of this way of working is to create as diverse a range of skills amongst any movement as possible.

It is important to recognise that a variety of individuals and groups are needed to achieve any significant aim. The most important – and common – goal is to ensure clubs are in the hands of those who share its best interests.

SUPPORTERS DIRECT SCOTLAND

Community Ownership around the world england & wales Green Bay Packers

SCOTLAND

SWEDEN

Four league clubs under community ownership.

Employs a 50% +1 ownership structure, similar to that in the German Bundesliga

There are currently 33 clubs owned by their supporters in England and Wales.

germany German Bundesliga clubs are owned 50% +1 vote by their supporters.

The only fan-owned team in any of the United States’ four major leagues.

‘I wish fans and all those involved in discussions regarding community ownership all the best.

I think it’s a model that would work well for many clubs and I would encourage them to go for it’ Shona Robison, MSP Minister for Commonwealth Games and Sport

COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP REPORT 2014

Spain argentina All Argentinian football clubs are entirely fan owned. No other form of club ownership is allowed.

Unlike most top European football clubs, Real Madrid and Barcelona’s fanmembers (socios) have owned and operated the club since its inception, along with Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna from the top flight of Spanish football.

GREECE Panathinaikos and Aris Thessaloniki are majority owned by supporters groups.

SUPPORTERS DIRECT SCOTLAND

OUR MISSION STATEMENT “TO PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE SPECTATOR SPORTS CLUBS BASED ON SUPPORTERS’ INVOLVEMENT AND COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP” HAS BEEN OUR GUIDING PRINCIPLE SINCE WE WERE ESTABLISHED IN SCOTLAND IN 2002.

Enabling Sport is proud to sponsor Supporters Direct Scotland and its’ Community Ownership Week. We are a social enterprise designed to: “facilitate the community ownership of football and other sporting clubs in a proactive, professional and planned manner.”

Devised, created and serviced by leading business advisory organisations with a total commitment to the social and environmental benefits of change.

For further information please contact: Supporters Direct Scotland Room 4 Beta House Innovation Park University of Stirling Stirling FK9 4NF T: 01786 845 606 or connect with us via: facebook.com/scottishfans twitter.com/scottishfans

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