In May 2006 the European Independent Review (EIR) published a report commissioned from Portugal’s former Deputy Prime Minister, José Luis Arnaut. Arnuat’s report, The Independent European Sports Review (IESR), presented a series of recommendations, most eye-catching of which was that supporters should have a greater say in the running of their clubs (Arnaut, 2006: 71-2). Arnaut believes that ‘properly structured supporter involvement will help to contribute to improved governance’ of football clubs (Arnaut, 2006: 72). The IESR made specific reference to the involvement of Supporters Direct in Britain to develop football supporters’ trusts committed to the principle of mutual ownership of shares in football clubs by their members, to challenge the increasing level of commercialization of the British game, beginning in the 1990s (Supporters Direct, 2001; Hamil, et al, 2003). The IESR report, notes similar commercializing trends across Europe and the absence of a pan-European body representing the interests of supporters which UEFA could enter into structured dialogue with, advocates enquiring into the feasibility of ‘rolling out’ the British Supporters Direct model at a European level, while taking into consideration the different club ownership models that exist across Europe. (IESR, 2006: 72)
Football – more than a business
However exactly what role would the Supporters Direct model play in the context of increasing commercialization? To answer this we must begin by understanding the broader context of the commodity structure of the football industry and how this differs from other non-sporting industries. The stability of the commodity structure of most non-sports industries is measured by how much society is collectively willing to confer the product or service as primarily an exchange value marketed to consumers in the pursuit of profit. The social use or need the product fulfills for consumers of course remains crucial but of secondary importance to the continued production of the product/service for sale with profit. For example, in everday life we need cars, houses, jobs to function – they are needed. But if they are not profitable to provide, then eventually car factories close, house-building stops, jobs are cut. This is far from the case with the commodity structure of some products or services, such as education or healthcare, for example. In each case society is unsure where its priority lies with exchange value and profits or fulfillment of community/public needs/aspirations. The instability of the commodity structure of the football industry is just, if not more, stark. The mark of instability in football is often manifest in the commonly understood reflection that football is ‘more than a business’, where the usual rules of producer-consumer relations do not apply quite so well and where football supporters exert a strong sense of moral ownership.
Polanyi (1957), coined the phrase ‘fictitious commodity’ to draw attention to this instability within specific industries where ‘fictitious commodities’ are more clearly discernible as socially constructed and open to social deconstruction. With respect to assessing the implications of the Supporters Direct model we could extend Polanyi’s phrase to include a ‘double fiction’: on the one hand, the fiction that football is an exchange value, sold to consumers in the pursuit of profit and, on the other hand, the ‘fiction’ that community, tradition, social cohesion and moral ownership of a community asset which is spun by football club owners and supporters alike. As a fictitious commodity, the ‘present tense’ of the football business is in flux: it is a possible economic asset and a possible community asset, without fully realizing either. More to the point, it is not simply that one ‘asset’ corrupts the other (that the demand for success on the field corrupts the drive for profitability and vice-versa), but that the one provides the necessary ground for the other to flourish (that without a business model elite professional football would not exist), while also simultaneously providing the ground from which the corruption of both possibilities occur.
As we suggest below in relation to supporter trusts, football offers supporters just such a double fiction – an unrealizable commodity (one that rarely makes a profit) and a sense of community (the myth of a golden age of tradition and community weaved in and around football clubs). Both ‘fictions’ become the context within which the Supporters Direct model operates at the level of supporter trusts.
The Supporters Direct model
Supporters’ trusts do of course hold out the prospect of football supporters taking an active part in running their clubs and, eventually, taking over their full ownership and control. Mutualization – the basis for ownership under the trust model – holds the potential to promote supporters into positions where they can exercise participatory democracy; indeed, a small number of lower-league English and Scottish clubs are now owned outright by their supporters. This type of development does mark a significant progress for football supporters.
However, it is this same premise that makes supporters’ trusts potentially powerful organizations (or ‘techniques’) for colonizing and routing supporter-relations along a more commodified pathway. A supporter’s sense of moral ownership of their club can become blurred by the diktats of economic ownership: converting the traditional feelings of emotional solidarity between supporters in their attachment to the club into more instrumental and quantifiable forms of attachment. Mutualization, even in the most favourable conditions (for example, where there is a statutory commitment to governance by mutuality) creates only the potential for participatory democracy; it does not simply arise out of the establishment of mutuality (Reid, 2003). Mutuals must still derive profits so they can invest in the organization in order to keep up with other clubs competitively, to develop and to simply survive. Democratically elected boards must deliver and execute business plans based on an economic rationality, which may come into tension with parallel social objectives (FGRC, 2005: 62-3).
Such pressures can provide fertile ground for the democratic potential inherent in mutualization to become compromised. As supporters are drawn deeper into football as a business, they may be inclined to view performance with an eye to the consequences for the latest club audit. Research indicates that the majority of supporters’ trusts make cash donations to their football clubs, with almost half of the trust movement viewing such activities as an ‘important’ or ‘very important’ part of a trust’s activities. In particular, this donor aspect to supporter’s trusts is rebuffed by Supporters Direct’s Deputy Chief Executive, Dave Boyle: ‘Gone were the days when would simply hand over money. That is not their role’ Boyle, 2006). Indeed, there appears to be an ambiguous attitude amongst grassroots supporters with regard to how progressive the trust movement is and how much it can achieve. Certain indicators do suggest that ordinary supporters remain favourable toward the principle of supporters’ trusts becoming involved in the running of football clubs. Many talk of their presence as being a long-overdue intervention which can bring about ‘a measure of democracy to football clubs’, (Urban 75 Forums) and believe that they are ‘a much better way of running [clubs]’ (One Touch Football Forum, 2005); an obvious starting point for supporters looking to constructively improve their lot, rather than simply complaining about being exploited (Conn, 2000: 31).
Ideology, or an achievable objective?
There are, however, emergent signs that at least some sections of football supporters are questioning the legitimacy of the trust movement. This relates to supporter trusts’ ability to put into action their objective to effectively redress the balance of power at football clubs and remain outside the orbit of influence of club hierarchies and their financial agendas.
A lack of influence in club affairs seems, in some instances at least, to have persuaded trusts to pursue the controversial tactic of allying with individuals holding large amounts of club shares (or seeking to gain large amounts). This has led to suspicion developing between trusts and other supporters. For example, The Owls Trust (the Sheffield Wednesday FC supporters’ trust) became entangled in Leeds United chairman Ken Bates’ takeover bid for Sheffield Wednesday in 2004. The Owls Trust were accused of coming to an arrangement with Bates in his bid for ownership in return for increasing their own influence in the club, and were strongly condemned by many Sheffield Wednesday supporters for their actions (E-TIMS, 2004). The Celtic Trust was criticized for using shares owned by Simple Minds singer and Celtic supporter Jim Kerr in order to force motions at a Celtic AGM. Kerr had previously been part of a proposed consortium seeking to take control of Celtic FC in 1998, and there was speculation amongst Celtic supporters that the Celtic Trust was being used as ‘a vehicle for increasing the power and influence of a number of prominent individuals who currently sit outside the boardroom’ (E-TIMS, 2004).
What is clear is that such contradictions concerning the supporters’ trust movement – its ‘leveling’ ideology being counterbalanced by a willingness to be utilized for commercial purposes by the club hierarchies that trusts seek to replace – is tangible and very real, and ought to be considered with care before the Supporters Direct model is rolled out beyond the United Kingdom and into mainland European leagues.
Editors’ note: This article is based on Kennedy, P. (2012) ‘Supporters Direct and Supporters Governance of Football: A Model for Europe?’ Soccer and Society 13(3).