The document discusses fan ownership in Scottish football clubs. It finds that fan ownership has flourished in Scotland due to clubs' financial instability under private owners and a desire to protect clubs' long-term sustainability. Currently 7 Scottish Professional Football League clubs are fan-owned, with more structuring deals. However, barriers include supporters' lack of funds and conventional financing. While fan ownership holds a positive future, additional external support is still needed for the model to become the norm.

1. The Future of Fan
Ownership in
Scotland
Andrew Jenkin (@AndrewJenkin)
Head of Club Development
@ Supporters Direct Scotland (@SuppDirectScot)
& PhD student @ Uni of Strathclyde

2. What is Fan/Community
Ownership?
• A minimum of 50% +1 of the voting rights of the Club to be controlled
collectively by a democratic entity which has an open and inclusive
membership.
• The clubs are 'Democratic’ and the membership of the entity work on
a one member one vote principle
• The clubs are ‘Inclusive’ and that there are no substantial barriers to
participation as a voting member, with membership open to all that
are sympathetic to the aims of the Club.
• Any profits are reinvested back into the Club as opposed to being
distributed to shareholders.
• The Club is committed to running as a sustainable business.

4. Community Ownership in
the UK in 2018
• There are now 38 clubs in England, Wales and
Northern Ireland in community ownership
• There are 7 in Scotland (in the SPFL) with a
further 2 (St Mirren & Hearts) with structured
deals to go into Community Ownership
meaning 25% of present SPFL Premiership
Clubs will be community owned and 16.7% of
SPFL clubs community owned (compared to
3.3% of English league clubs).
• In 2008 there were no SPFL clubs in
community ownership

5. Purpose of Research
• The main purpose of this research was
twofold:
1) To understand how and why we got
here
2) What future growth of fan ownership
looks like in Scotland

6. Methodology
• Interviews with 8 experts and stakeholders within
the Scottish football sector including Scottish
Government representatives, club representatives,
football finance experts, academics and
representatives of fan groups.
• Analysis of responses to Scottish Football
Supporters Survey

7. Findings: Why Supporter
Ownership Has
Flourished?
1. It safeguards football clubs from asset stripping and those intent on
short-term business gain, and returns clubs to longer term sustainability.
2. Supporters will do what is right for their club. They are the best long-term
stewards; will take the game back to the terraces; safe hands.
3. It strengthens the local community; engender community spirit; link clubs
with communities.
4. Supporters deserve to be at the helm of their club as they contribute
passion and commitment and should have more of a say than owners with
little connection to the club and who are out of touch with the local
community.
5. It creates transparency by empowering supporters and including them in
decision-making.
6. It protects the club from the ups and downs created by different
ownership and speculation over developments; supporter ownership could
provide consistency and stability.
7. This is what works in other countries. Germany was mentioned most
frequently in this regard.

8. Fan Owned
Clubs in
Scotland
Year Club How fan ownership came about
2002Clydebank Crisis and subsequent phoenix club
2008Gretna 2008 Crisis and subsequent phoenix club
2009Dundee* Crisis
2010Stirling Albion Crisis
2010Clyde Crisis
2011East Stirlingshire Crisis
2014Hearts Crisis
2016Motherwell Campaign
2016St Mirren Campaign

9. How We Got Here:
Institutional Failures
• It was considered the Private Ownership
Model was not working effectively with the
financial uncertainty the single benefactor
model can cause cited.
• “He (the owner) ran it with his heart rather
than his head”

10. How We Got Here:
Financial Distress of Clubs
• PWC 24th Review of Scottish
Premier League Football
Season 2011/2012 stated
ten clubs (excluding
Dunfermline and Hamilton
Academical) made a
combined loss of £11m.
• The report was entitled
Turbulent times ahead and
has proved to be the case
with there now having been
twelve administrations since
2000.

11. How We Got Here:
“No More White Knights”
• The supporters groups the only thing between the club and
liquidation: “the only other option was to let the club die”.
• “When the former Chairman put the club into administration, the
Supporters Trust were only the ones keeping it going. We were the
ones giving the administrators the money. We were the ones
paying the players wages. If the fans hadn't rallied together, the
club would have gone”
• “Go into any shopping centre and you’ll see shutters down and
closing down sign and football is in the same situation. The clubs
are dying off and must stand on their own two feet. The only
option I can see is the fans themselves”

12. Financial sustainability
and stability
• The instability of private ownership was considered
the greatest strength of the community ownership
model.
• The stability fan ownership brought was referred to in
both a financial and social context by interviewees.
• This benefit is cited by another interviewee who
states community ownership “takes away some of
the risks associated with other people coming in with
different objectives. With private ownership, there is
a pattern of people coming in but then their
objectives change or funding runs out”
• Easier to sell clubs to fan groups “because you know
they don't have any alternative agenda”

13. Reasons against supporters
buying their club
• Supporters may not have the organisational skills to buy their
clubs and run them successfully. Such doubts were expressed
in relation to larger clubs in particular:
• "I have no desire to have my club run by a bunch of
amateurs" (Individual).
• A small number of respondents cautioned that, even if
supporters manage to buy their club, over the longer term
this may not be commercially viable.
• Supporters ‘already have the opportunity to do this under
existing company law’. Preferential treatment given to
football club supporters over other potential buyers was seen
as out-of-step with business protocol.

14. A Contradiction?
• The biggest perceived hindrance of the fan
ownership model was the inability of Trusts to
access major funds as potential investors
potentially put off by non profit distribution
and democratic member/one vote system and
principles of Supporters Trusts.
• FFC's Sustainability Review looked at
examples of supporter ownership and a
common problem was the inability to raise
significant funds to support current
operations, invest for promotion or avoid
relegation" (Falkirk Football and Athletic Club
Ltd).

15. The Future: The
Barriers?
• A report identified the ‘unwillingness of
conventional financial institutions to provide
investment or loan capital to football clubs’
acknowledging the need for an investment
mechanism to help facilitate the community
ownership of sport clubs (Morrow, 2016)
• Hence why St Mirren & Hearts have
structured deals rather than taking
immediate ownership

16. What Does
The Future
Hold?
“I think it’s inevitable it will
become the norm”

17. What Does The Future Look Like?

18. Supporter
Shareholdings
in 2018

19. The Future: External
Support?
• Community ownership of sport clubs aligns with the
Scottish Government’s policy for community
empowerment set out the Community
Empowerment (Scotland) Act 14 which received
Royal Assent on 24th July 2015.
• A SG official said they want to see “football become
sustainable in Scotland and I think community
ownership offers one model of helping clubs be
sustainable, rooted in their communities, supported
by their fans”
• 2015: the Green Party won cross-party support at
Holyrood to give the Scottish Government powers
to establish a fans’ legal right to buy.
• 2016: Consultation process begins (& ends). Report
published in June.

20. Conclusion
• The model holds an encouraging future, with a positivity
held towards the model and increasing success stories,
although additional and external support from SG, SFA &
SPFL to help further fan ownership will not be forthcoming.
• Everything that has been achieved to date has been through
a grassroots movement and something to celebrate and
applaud.
• It could be argued this has come about because of financial
troubles within the game and lack of forthcoming potential
‘white knights’, rather than because of the model’s other
benefits.
• A conflict between a) financial investment/financial
sustainability & b) democracy being a positive but also a
hindrance.