Regular readers may remember that a while ago we ran an article on the Five Pound Football Club – well now it’s starting to become a reality!
The website is now live and subscriptions are being taken up quickly. What have you got to lose? You could own a stake in a club for the price of a couple of beers!
Nick Thompson of Five Pound Football Club kindly passed this information on so pop on over to the site, have a look around and join Footballbits and many others in signing up:
Inter Milan may have won the Champions League final in Madrid but thousands of football fans have pledged their support to a new adventure – a Five Pound Football Club.
The relaunched website, fivepoundfootballclub.com, will offer an alternate model of fan ownership. Thousands of football fans are looking to form a British Barcelona in cyberspace this summer – and everyone’s invited. We’re looking to establish a successful, sustainable club that will benefit from the pooled resources, knowledge and enthusiasm of our community.
Fans are invited to sign up and make a five pound contribution to our investment fund, which will be used to purchase a stake in a lower league club from either Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland or Wales.
Members will be invited to read, rate and respond to articles and polls that will be published on the official site. Members will be invited to contribute additional funds – with an authority rating being linked to their personal level of investment. Members that contribute additional funds will have more authority in the votes that decide how those funds are distributed: to the playing budget, improving facilities or implementing community projects.
Over five thousand people have declared an interest in joining the community, which has a significant following on Facebook. Preliminary polls on the Facebook group have identified the most popular clubs from each country:
The most popular Northern Irish clubs:
1. Bangor (25.77%)
2. Donegal Celtic (15.46%)
3. Carrick Rangers (7.22%)
4. Ballymoney United (5.15%)
The most popular Irish clubs:
1. Derry City (28.1%)
2. Limierick (20.25%)
3. Shelbourne (18.6%)
The most popular Scottish clubs:
1. Queens Park (21.29%)
2. Livingston (16.13%)
3. Berwick Rangers (7.74%)
4. Stenhousemuir (6.13%)
The most popular Welsh clubs:
1. Barry Town (28.98%)
2. Cardiff Corinthians (12.10%)
3. Caernarfon Town (10.51%)
4. Llandudno (6.69%)
5. West End (5.10%)
Footballbits are pround to have signed up as a founder member of the Five Pound Football Club, why dont you join us and help make that dream a reality? benefit from the pooled resources, knowledge and enthusiasm of thousands of football fans, become an owner of an unfashionable side and running it your way, to create a sustainable, successful club.
Blackpool have just proved that fairytales do come true, so why not the Five Pound Football Club?
Just curious as to how this is supposed to be different from the Gravesend / Ebbsfleet experiment? Without having my finger on the pulse of all things North Kent I’m fairly sure things haven’t gone swimmingly down there. Daish has performed miracles on an ever-decreasing budget. Decreasing because of spiralling disinterest from the “members”. This is a club who could, in theory, rise the ranks of a high profile league system, with all the profile-increasing options that involves. The clubs being considered here are pretty much as high as they can go within their domestic leagues (Scottish ones accepted) so what is the lure?
Thanks for the comment Nik.
To make sure I answer the question completely, I’ve sent it on to Nick Thompson, the founder of the five pound football club to respond. I’ll let you know his answer
I haven’t been to your website in ages, but really enjoyed this post! Makes a welcome change from the usual stuff I’ve been RSS’ing lately!
The fivepoundfootballclub.com community will definitely be football club owners, not football club managers. There will be no ‘pick the team’ gimmicks. The price has been set low to ensure that membership will always be affordable. Although members can contribute more if they like. At Ebbsfleet the price of membership has risen significantly as the membership numbers have dropped.
We realise that we wouldn’t be able to support a club in the english leagues with the funds that we will raise. When you reach a certain level in England, the sums of money required to progress are huge. There is the culture of clubs gambling their financial futures to progress. Win or bust. It’s important to note that Ebbsfleet to be relatively well run (the budget cuts were drastic, but necessary action). It appears that the funds are not available to give the team an advantage to progress any further.
The chosen Five Pound Football Club will not suffer as a result of investment from our community. We propose that any chosen club will continue to be run as a business. The books will have to be balanced without any investment fund contributions. The members/owners have the opportunity to contribute funds that will be used to acquire luxury items for the club (maybe raising funds to cover the cost of a three year contract for a new player, a new stand, catering facilities or a community program).
The clubs mentioned above were the result of an early popularity poll – serious consideration would obviously be given to all options available. Choosing the club will be the most important decision our community will make. The club must have to potential to play at the level that the members desire. We are not expecting every member/owner to turn up to the game every week, although they would be more than welcome to. Alternatively, they’ll be able to catch all the highlights online. We hope to engage the local community and to help support a team that they are proud to support (and hopefully own too).
Regarding Ebbsfleet, were they the best option available? Does the club really have Football League potential (unless the legions of owners started going to games, which is unrealistic). The model could work in a less competitive league and at a club with lower running costs. Ebbsfleet are still a well-run club but it seems that they will be getting used to living within their means after a couple of years of flying high. I hope they prove me wrong and can get back to competing towards a Football League place.
Thanks Nick for the detailed response.
Hope that answers your questions Nik and hope to see you over at http://www.fivepoundfootballclub.com
Pingback: Pro Sports
Pingback: Marketing On The Internet
I’m usually not the guy to submit comments on people’s blogs, but for your post I just had to do it. I’ve been digging through your website a lot recently and I’m super impressed, I think you could potentially emerge as a main opinions for your market. Not sure what your schedule is like in life, but if you began commiting more time to posting on this site, I’d bet you would begin seeing a lot of traffic soon. With advertisements, it could emerge as a sweet second revenue stream. Just a concept to think about. Good luck!
Hello there,I like your site and it looks very interesting and easy to read,really!. I am from Italy. I love the Soccer and cannot wait till 11th June, can you?.But there is a problem camming from FIFA. It is that doesn´t choose the best teams in this planet for the World Cup which it should otherwise don´t call the World Cup a final, if you want to play football for the spirit of competition then go to the olympics games. this is basically what the World Cup is turning to, and it su…, ire needed to beat portugal to be in and is not, jap beat lowly teams as bahrain, qatar, kuwait, to be in, is this justice I dont think so, just because you are in the World Cup it doesn´t mean that you have the quality to be in like jap can attes. Any way, I expect to see a great final on 11th July and my favorite winner team is South Africa,and my favorite player is Zlatan Ibrahimobic.Good blog and keep going.Cu!