If LFC goes majority fan ownership

The Albert
22

As @Prolix has pointed out, under current legislation it is nigh on an impossibility.

The Government could enact new laws governing football clubs, but if achieving a 50%+1 fan shareholding is an objective (at a price substantially less than market value) it would require the adoption of policies more closely aligned to The Communist Manifesto than that of the Tories.

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23

Frankly, it would almost certainly be unconstitutional.

If @Lowton_Red or @Prolix could repeat that point so that it can come to others attention that would be great :joy: :man_facepalming:

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24

Well, when you put it like that… :eyes:

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What I am trying to understand, it works in Germany since 1998 as Prolix mentioned and it is fairly Capitalist country.

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26

That ownership structure is not unconstitutional; compelling private owners to arrive at that structure would be.

Germany didn’t have to force anyone to sell off their ownership of a football club because they were set up from the beginning to be collectively-owned.

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27

That’s the reason why it happened. Fans sold 49% of their shares to raise money for the clubs.

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28

Great post @Lowton_Red

My accounting/finance has always been rather rusty. I’m not stretching the discussion or even exploring options, but just for what if’s sake; how about IPO?

FSG floats 34826 new shares which the fans buy. There’s a majority stake of the fans and the money goes into equity fund.

That would mean trading LFC in stock market,

  1. making it vulnerable to vulture capitalists
  2. there can even be a hostile takeover
  3. the price is extremely prohibitive for the fans
  4. LFC will be susceptible financial turbulences

I really don’t see any positives :grimacing:

29

@Lowton_Red and @Prolix,

So, apart from the odd protesting outside the stadium grounds, fans can only use their influence so far. That’s it.

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30

You can stop attending games, more importantly, stop buying season tickets. That would be a sucker punch.

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That would require the whole fan base to be unified and thats not happening.

32

Yup, the only possibility in order to get out of the current system would probably be to declare football clubs non-profit organisations. But it’s difficult to envisage any government going that far as long as there is so much money to be made from that sport.

As Prolix said, it would need the total implosion of the current system to be able to envisage something else.

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