Right now, football fans have more power than they might think
Update 21st April 2021: There’s huge energy around this right now, with thousands of people joining Supporters’ Trusts, campaigns springing up all over the place, and politicians falling over themselves to promise action. We thought it might be useful to see if it can help bring the ideas together using a little tool we’ve been testing recently. So after reading this blog, be sure to vote up your favourite ideas for football reform, add your own and see the priorities emerging by taking part in our Wiki Survey: www.allourideas.org/fansfixfootball
The news of the ‘Big Six’ English clubs announcing plans to break away from existing competition structures to join a new ‘European Super League’ has left many fans wondering about the future of their beloved clubs. We believe that this is about more than money and greed: it goes to the core of the story of our society, and how organisations have come to see people.
At the height of the UK’s first lockdown, we described the pandemic as a crucible moment from which one of three futures would emerge: one in which we are Subjects, Consumers or Citizens. This is now exactly what we are seeing happen right now in the world of football. People who care about the sport must now decide between giving in to feelings of powerlessness and abandoning football’s fate to market forces — or stepping into our power as citizens of the beautiful game.
Money drives so much about the game, but it is ultimately supporters who make football meaningful. Not just the fans in the stadium, but the supporters around the world who live it, breathe it, play it, read about it, watch it, talk about it, argue about it and celebrate it, week in and week out. So right now, fans have an opportunity, not just to make this known to the powers that be, but to shape the future of decision-making and power within these institutions for the better.
Whether it’s by mobilising on social media, joining your club’s supporters’ trust, backing the Football Supporters Association’s campaigns, or participating in the government’s fan-led review of the game, football fans now have the chance to embrace a “Citizen” story and show that another football is possible.
It starts with understanding the stories we need to move away from, and the story we need to create.
Fans as Subjects
To do this, we first need to shake off the “Subject story” in football: the notion that the supporter’s role is simply to remain loyal to the badge through thick and thin, and leave the decision-making and management to our betters. This story has deep roots in the game, and is still felt widely. While the earliest grassroots football clubs in the UK were members’ associations (hence the term ‘club’), this was quickly overtaken by a more patrician model in which local bigwigs owned and ran football clubs as a way of “giving something back” to the masses.
Even when supporters rallied to raise vast sums of money to support their clubs (or bail them out), there was rarely any question of fans being given a say over the running of their clubs in return. In one memorable instance, a supporters club raised a sum of money, gargantuan for the time, to help their club install floodlights. Their reward? An annual invite for a glass of sherry with the club chairman.
The money involved today is far greater, and global corporations have replaced local bigwigs as owners, but many supporters still see their role as taking what’s given to them and hoping for the best.
Fans as Consumers
The commercialisation of the game from the 1990s onwards offered an alternative to this subject mindset. A new breed of football executives started to treat supporters as individual consumers of entertainment and spectacle, and put more effort into creating and marketing football as a customer experience. As President of Real Madrid and Chairman of the Super League, Florentino Pérez, put it when referring to fans:
“our responsibility as big clubs is to respond to their desires”.
While this arguably made stadiums more modern and family-friendly, it also gave rise to an increasingly pervasive consumer logic in the way that clubs think of fans, which has even seeped into how we fans think about ourselves.
Now, being treated as a consumer may be better than being treated as a subject, as consumer-minded organisations at least have to listen to your needs. But at its core, the relationship between a fan and their club is based on a sense of attachment that transcends consumerism — no matter how many replica shirts they end up buying. Whether that attachment comes from a grandparent taking us to watch their local League Two side, or a friend at school convincing us to support their team, it’s not a relationship that can be bought or sold.
And of course, when loyalty and attachment are what gives supporting a club meaning, you can’t really shop around and take your business elsewhere. So rather than being empowering, the era of the football Consumer simply became an opportunity for club owners to monetise fans’ loyalty, without giving supporters any say in the future direction of their clubs.
Fans as Citizens
Today, the time has come for football to step into the Citizen story. As fans, we have vast latent power that we have barely begun to exercise. Even with empty stadiums, supporters are more connected than ever through a diverse array of social media platforms and publications. In theory, this should make it easier than ever to connect, mobilise and organise around a shared vision of what we want our game to be.
Indeed, over the last 40 years, more and more supporters across the world have started to demand a greater say and influence over how their clubs are run: everything from the state of the pies to the state of the balance sheet. By organising democratically through “supporters’ trusts”, raising funds and sometimes taking ownership stakes in their clubs, fans have worked together to take responsibility for the long-term future of their clubs.
In some cases, they have managed to get supporter-directors on the club board, and 43 clubs in England and Wales have been taken into democratic community ownership.
It’s notable that supporters’ trusts from the ‘Big Six’ Premier League clubs have been highly visible in the media in the aftermath of the ESL announcement, providing a legitimate voice for fan anger. Supporters calling for their own clubs to be docked points is another example of how some fans prioritise their citizenship of the wider game over narrow self-interest.
But fan participation is not just about opposing what’s gone wrong in the game. There are countless examples of how supporters’ trusts and other fan organisations have brought fans together to make a difference for their club, for society and for local communities. These supporters are reimagining what football should look like and mean.
So what can supporters do right now to step into the Citizen story?
What would we do in this time if we really believed in the people around us?
We don’t have all the answers, but as a starter, you might ask yourself:
How can I connect and organise with fellow fans? e.g.
- Follow my club’s supporters trust on social media, and join up
- Follow and/or join the Football Supporters Association (@WeAreTheFSA), which campaigns for more fan influence and structured dialogue between supporters and clubs
- Start or join informal online groups
Are there issues in society and football that you particularly care about? How could you get involved? e.g.
- Support Kick It Out’s work in equality and inclusion in football
- Get involved with Football Welcomes Refugees
- Support Level Playing Field’s work for disabled football fans
- Find ways to participate in the government’s new fan-led review of the game’s governance — see the FSA’s Sustain the Game campaign for an overview of key issues
Could you support the work of your club’s charitable foundation in your local community?
- How can supporters like you take more ownership and control of clubs?
- Read Jim Keoghan’s brilliant Punk Football: The Rise of Fan Ownership in English Football and get inspired!
- Find out more about Germany’s “50+1” model, which ensures that democratic members’ associations retain majority control of clubs. Fan ownership is far from a panacea, but this has been linked to a football culture that puts people before profit. Common Wealth’s report on democratising football is also a good read.
- Join your club’s supporters trust and/or the FSA, which campaigns for the reform of ownership in football.
Now head over to the Wiki Survey to vote up your favourite ideas, add your own and see which priorities are emerging for people so far.
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