First of all let me say hats off to the Pompey trust. They are working hard and all off their own back, im pleased there are people out there who are willing to give up their own time to try to ensure our club survive.
Everything I write below must be seen in the context of the above.
But here is my problem with the idea of fans ownership. They are two fold.
We dont have enough fans, with enough money, for the club to be competitive. Lets be honest, we get around 12-14,000 fans to a home game. I know there are people who say they dont want to go because they dont know where the money is going. But i dont buy it. Of those 12-14,000 lets say half of them are seriously hard-core devoted fans. I count myself as one of them. I earn just over £24,000 pa. After tax, rent, bills etc i have around £1,000 per month disposable income. How much would i be ready to be able to give to the Pompey trust? Maybe £500 a year?
The average wage of a UK person is £20,800 pa. I would bet the average wage of the 6,000 odd devoted fans is lower than that. But even if all 6,000 donated £500 pa that would give the club 3,000,000 pa. Which is not enough to run a championship club. To get more finance into the club we would have to ask the wealthier fans to invest more. What do they get for their additional investment? Then you get into massive complications of two-tiered ownership.
Secondly, I already own Portsmouth football club and I already pay for that ownership. I dont really care who is chairman, the club is the fans we are the only constant. I pay a great deal to support and follow the team. Now, through no fault of our own we are now being asked for more money. I already struggle to justify my expenditure on Pompey to my girlfriend. What do i get for my contribution? I know this might seem selfish, but its true.
The only way fan ownership can be beneficial is if 'plan b' comes into effect. Then all of a sudden we are a well backed non-league team both financially and in terms of support. We could then re-start the club in the way we want it to be run. Then if it is successful and other investment wants to come in the future, we can build safeguards into the deal to ensure we never ever have to go through this again.
If i was the trust, i would focus solely on Plan B. Can we really afford to buy and run the club under Plan A?
A couple of criticisms of the Trust - they are minor, and they should be seen in context of praise that we opened this article with.
I am concerned by what i perceive to be a lack of focus. In the interim between the two crisis, i.e. the CSI period the Trust began to take the form of another supporters group - writing on things like Police videoing of fans and writing at length about the 'bubbling' of fans. There is a whole section on whether or not trust members should get membership cards and whether or not these should be dated. The trust should be focused on one thing - getting fans representation at the club either through complete ownership or as a board member, they cant get distracted by other things, they have a big enough task on their hands.
Secondly there is an unprofessional slant to some of the Trust communications. They contain spelling mistakes, there are unpopulated sections of the website. This might seem pernickety, but the trust and its board are asking us to put our faith in them, to give them our money and to support them as a representation of the fans with something we hold dear, our football club.
Everything I write below must be seen in the context of the above.
But here is my problem with the idea of fans ownership. They are two fold.
We dont have enough fans, with enough money, for the club to be competitive. Lets be honest, we get around 12-14,000 fans to a home game. I know there are people who say they dont want to go because they dont know where the money is going. But i dont buy it. Of those 12-14,000 lets say half of them are seriously hard-core devoted fans. I count myself as one of them. I earn just over £24,000 pa. After tax, rent, bills etc i have around £1,000 per month disposable income. How much would i be ready to be able to give to the Pompey trust? Maybe £500 a year?
The average wage of a UK person is £20,800 pa. I would bet the average wage of the 6,000 odd devoted fans is lower than that. But even if all 6,000 donated £500 pa that would give the club 3,000,000 pa. Which is not enough to run a championship club. To get more finance into the club we would have to ask the wealthier fans to invest more. What do they get for their additional investment? Then you get into massive complications of two-tiered ownership.
Secondly, I already own Portsmouth football club and I already pay for that ownership. I dont really care who is chairman, the club is the fans we are the only constant. I pay a great deal to support and follow the team. Now, through no fault of our own we are now being asked for more money. I already struggle to justify my expenditure on Pompey to my girlfriend. What do i get for my contribution? I know this might seem selfish, but its true.
The only way fan ownership can be beneficial is if 'plan b' comes into effect. Then all of a sudden we are a well backed non-league team both financially and in terms of support. We could then re-start the club in the way we want it to be run. Then if it is successful and other investment wants to come in the future, we can build safeguards into the deal to ensure we never ever have to go through this again.
If i was the trust, i would focus solely on Plan B. Can we really afford to buy and run the club under Plan A?
A couple of criticisms of the Trust - they are minor, and they should be seen in context of praise that we opened this article with.
I am concerned by what i perceive to be a lack of focus. In the interim between the two crisis, i.e. the CSI period the Trust began to take the form of another supporters group - writing on things like Police videoing of fans and writing at length about the 'bubbling' of fans. There is a whole section on whether or not trust members should get membership cards and whether or not these should be dated. The trust should be focused on one thing - getting fans representation at the club either through complete ownership or as a board member, they cant get distracted by other things, they have a big enough task on their hands.
Secondly there is an unprofessional slant to some of the Trust communications. They contain spelling mistakes, there are unpopulated sections of the website. This might seem pernickety, but the trust and its board are asking us to put our faith in them, to give them our money and to support them as a representation of the fans with something we hold dear, our football club.
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