GTFC fan's ownership

Quoted from barralad

I've kept out of this thread but am happy belatedly to confirm that I have absolutely none of the skills needed to run a professional football club and although retired (which appears to mean I have loads of time) I have absolutely no interest in acquiring them.

Serious question: what would you say they are?

You’d think some PR skills would be useful.

Quoted from LH

You’d think some PR skills would be useful.

Or knowing who to turn to with respect to external communications.

Quoted from barralad

I've kept out of this thread but am happy belatedly to confirm that I have absolutely none of the skills needed to run a professional football club and although retired (which appears to mean I have loads of time) I have absolutely no interest in acquiring them.

With your dodgy music tastes and political beliefs you could really cause havoc at the top table

OTO    Operation Take Over could be the new buzz word, seriously though it would need to be set up and run by people who understand the business side and are experienced in promoting everything for growth.

Glad to see the debate taking off and some very encouraging participation on both sides. It is both sides that need  convincing though as those who already maybe share such a belief do not need any more encouragement.

I've shown the difference in how the likes of Barcelona and FC United of Manchester are both owned by the fans - although with hugely differing levels of finance available to them - to indicate that it can be done at whatever level of the game. Nowhere is more passionate about fan ownership than the Bundesliga where the chipping away of it by RB Leipzig and Hoffenheim is starting to have a genuine impact on terrace culture.

A lot of folk will know that most Saturdays during the football season I watch my adopted team, Auchinleck Talbot, in Scotland. We are run by an elected committee as are the vast majority of clubs at our grade, but we have been hugely successful because of the longevity and foresight shown by said committee for the best part of forty years now. Auchinleck is a village of less than 4,000 inhabitants now, and was basically shut down after the miner's strike when the pits closed, but we are Scotland's most successful non league side by a country mile. The club is at the absolute centre of the community and every fan feels they have a stake in it. Committee, fans and players all socialise with each other, there's none of the them and us attitude.

We run a scheme whereby individuals donate £10 per month to the club over 10 months of the year. This guarantees the club £100 per person. It's not just the fans though, it's committee, management and all the players buy into it, and there are now over 130 folk who contribute, giving the club £13,000 per year for transfers and contract extensions etc. There's no draw or anything for this£10 per month it all goes to the club, and when the player of the year social is held there's a free bar for everyone who takes part. £13,000 might not seem a lot to a club like Grimsby, but to us it's of huge significance as it means we eat at the top table year after year and are always competing for major honours.

Where it could be useful to the likes of Town is seeing how many folk might sign up for it? I douby there'd be more than a handful do it in the current climate, but were it a club at the heart of the community things would be different. If Grimsby got the same kind of percentage sign up as we do (130 out of 3,900 inhabitants of Auchinleck is over 3%) then with the collective population of Grimsby and Cleethorpes of approximately 170,000 (roughly forty times that of Auchinleck's) the same kind of financial commitment from 3%  of the population would be just over £500.000.

Am not saying that this kind of science would be anything like exact but it does highlight what can be done, and it doesn't take a Bill Gates or a Mark Zuckerberg to do it, just a dedicated group of people who are there for the sole purpose of making the club great again. Of course, some business skills would be handy and am sure with some kind of imaginative sponsorship deals they could be bought in on an as need basis.

It's not an unsurmountable problem , and as I've mentioned previously a fan owned club needs to control only 51% of the shares so they can investment into the club. It can be done.

I dont know the answer to this but would the fact that GTFC is a PLC hold this back? If so this may be extremely expensive to unravel

I think GTFC are the only public company with its head office in Gy/Cleeps ( previously Cosalt was the other)

Those who want to should set up a lottery syndicate with the express aim of funding a takeover. You can create a syndicate online.

https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/games/syndicates

A fan takeover would only work if the current debt was dropped and the club was offered for a token fee.

....and that, surely, is where any kind of fan buy out should come from in the first place? Football's an emotional game and asking for such debts to be dropped, to further the cause of the Town would warant a response from the board - hopefully. It would be interesting to see what that would be.

If we are to believe that the people on the board are fans, and have the best interests of the club at heart then perhaps they could make their own impassioned plea as to why they ought to remain in control. Again, it would be very interesting to see such a response. Let's not get too tied up in can we afford it though, it's always the fallback position of those afraid of change for illogiocal reasoning - "can we afford it" or the classic "be careful what you wish for"

One final point to anyone who thinks the present set up is just what the club need, because they are averse to change, why do you think that? Look beyond the horizons as are at the moment and dare to think big. Does anybody think we'll ever get back to holding our own in the Championship under the current set up? If you don't then you must surely want change. Fan ownership has to be the way forward.