I understand what you are saying and believe me I’m not a spring chicken anymore too. Being a Liverpool supporter for almost 30 years, yes I visit Anfield so IMHO I can call myself a supporter.
The problem I had with your original post was not your point, I also think that people from Liverpool should be the first to get involved, seems logical to me but more the rest, like we are some second rate fans, that’s what rubbed me the wrong way and why I did not respond the first time.
Fans of Liverpool Football Club can be just as passionate and knowledgeable as any other fans of Liverpool Football Club. It doesn’t depend on where you were born you can be a genius or an idiot on Football matters and you can be a casual fan or a die hard, committed, passionate life and death style zealot.
Now, in my opinion, only people in Merseyside can really be emotionally invested in the fortunes of Merseyside as effected by the success and economic contribution of Liverpool Football Club. Yeah fans from other areas can think its important or nice or that the better the local community is doing the more pleasant their trips to Anfield and easier it is to attract players. But Liverpool isn’t the most economically strong city, investment into the city, regular tourists to LFC as a destination or visitors from abroad for games, commercial deals, choice of construction partners, decisions on staff/HR matters. All that is vital to the wellbeing of this area and unless you live in the area or have I’m not sure, on the non sporting side, that it’s level between local fans and out of towners.
Note I’m not talking the toxic arseholes who have a real dislike of fans from abroad and wools. I’m a wool from The Wirral and to those idiots I’m as much an out of towner as someone from Hong Kong. But my local area is massively effected by Liverpool the City doing well too. And I have a lot of professional, emotional and friendship connections that are effected in that way.
The discussion on local or non local board representation depends on what the brief is. If it is to represent local issues at board level, then yes, a local person would be better.
If it is for a full board role, with all issues related to LFC in play, then it should be the best person for the job, regardless of their post code.
Edit
I’m not convinced that if it happens, it won’t be a ceremonial role anyway.
Thank you I’m 64 but I’ll take anybody on who talk shite about my club in my local.
Now, in my opinion, only people in Merseyside can really be emotionally invested in the fortunes of Merseyside as effected by the success and economic contribution of Liverpool Football Club. Yeah fans from other areas can think its important or nice or that the better the local community is doing the more pleasant their trips to Anfield and easier it is to attract players. But Liverpool isn’t the most economically strong city, investment into the city, regular tourists to LFC as a destination or visitors from abroad for games, commercial deals, choice of construction partners, decisions on staff/HR matters. All that is vital to the wellbeing of this area and unless you live in the area or have I’m not sure, on the non sporting side, that it’s level between local fans and out of towners.
I agree, although I have read a lot about the city and the club, I’ll never get the real feel for the city of Liverpool as I have for my home town The Hague, it is in your bones.
It’s pretty obvious that any fan rep should be from the local area and it’s got nothing to do with passion for the club or football knowledge. It’s simply because if you’re from the local area then it is more likely that the decisions made by the club are going to impact on your day to day life. Bigger stadia, moving training ground, transport infrastructure changes, employing more or less people. All these things are more relevant to those in or around the city than outside.
ARD has already made a similar point but it’s worth emphasising how much the city relies on football tourism. Other than the Beatles it’s the thing that brings people to Liverpool and, let’s face it, not many are flying halfway round the world to take a look round Woodison. The more correct decisions taken at board level, the more successful the club is, the more financial benefits for local businesses and the city in general.
Having said that I have no doubt that were we to see a fan rep appointed they would have little or no influence. All the big decisions would continue to be made by FSG in the Boston bunker. That’s what happens now (see ESL). Even when we had a Liverpool born and bred CEO, Peter Moore, he always gave me the impression he knew about as much I did about what was going on at the club.
As I understand it the club is being petitioned for there to be two fan representatives on the board. In those circumstances 1 ought to be a local, preferrably a season ticket holder. The other ought to be able to be selected from the Liverpool membership as a whole, regardless of where they live. Purely on what they can bring to these discussions on behalf of the wider fanbase.
As for goldenshares this is just a nonsense. The articles could reflect a change where for designated matters the two fan votes need to be in agreement. It is defining what those matters are which is important.
The other important aspect about having seats on the board is transparency. Having fan representatives entitled to insight into executive discussions and being able to propose motions for deliberation, regardless of their further influence, would itself provide a meaningful step forward, provided they weren’t overly constrained by obligations of confidentiality.
Is it possible to have an official, unified, supporters’ group? Then the LFC board could meet with the supports’ board periodically/quarterly and discuss issued with a wider group than just two fan rep.
How would someone representing the wider fanbase (presumably you mean someone who is not from Liverpool) be selected? According to the club there are 580 million Liverpool fans in the world, all of whom have an opinion on how the club should be run and, as can be seen from this relatively small fans forum, rarely completely agree on anything.
How were they selected for the supporters’ committee? I’ve got a vague recollection but I’m not sure enough to say for definite (I think they were voted for by lfc members?). If that was not the case then I would say they should be voted for by LFC members.
And yes I would say that second representative would ordinarily be someone not from Liverpool (but not necessarily). Already with 50% of the fan representation the local fans would be disproportionately represented compared with Liverpool fans outside of Liverpool. As they should be, btw, but they shouldn’t be the only ones with a voice.
Haha…well, that’s a bit tinpot then, huh? Ok, well my idea would be that the candidates would submit a video pitch to the lfc website that would then be put up for lfc members to vote on, online. You’d need several rounds of voting most likely over a few months but yeah, that’s how I’d do it.
Still so many fans across Merseyside have never even tried to go to LFC games because, unless you know someone who knows someone, tickets are so hard to get through the stupid site.
Another nonsensical sensationalist headline from an increasingly irrelevant publication.
For a start, Forbes’ valuations count for nothing; they are notoriously unreliable indicators of the true value of sports assets.
And even if the Forbes valuation is correct, Liverpool doesn’t stand to benefit. FSG might be sitting on an asset worth £2.93bn, but unless it sells all or part of the asset, FSG doesn’t actually have anything more in the bank to invest in Liverpool.
And if FSG does sell Liverpool for anything approaching the Forbes valuation, it will be FSG that sees all of the benefit of the increase in value, not Liverpool.
So no, Liverpool hasn’t been given a £1.8 billion boost by FSG. If anything it’s the other way round.
Being a Liverpool supporter for almost 30 years, yes I visit Anfield so IMHO I can call myself a supporter.