Supporter Ownership – Can it really work?

The 20 year tenure of Sir David Murray came to an end late last year and speculation is intensifying over the new possible owners of Rangers Football Club. In the driving seat, Andrew Ellis, a property developer who has had previous experience as chairman of Northampton Town and Queens Park Rangers, is currently exploring the Ibrox books and could make a decision at any time whether he wants to take over from Murray’s legacy. In the back seat, the Rangers Supporters Trust are eyeing an ambitious move to secure the ownership of the football club. This would be in the same mould as Barcelona, Hamburg and Benfica, where supporters would purchase a membership which allows them the right to vote for a president.

But can supporter ownership work for Rangers?

I must admit, I have huge confidence in the RST that they have researched and analysed this idea enough to know that it is certainly a ‘goer’. In 2009, the RST held a conference informing members about how the idea would work with guest speakers from Espanyol and Hamburg. The idea has been bubbling for a while now and provides a totally different structure to what Andrew Ellis could bring. The research involving Hamburg and Espanyol is a good start and supporter ownership is more common than we think around the globe compared to our ‘British-Style’ ownership. Benfica currently have the highest number of members with 171,000 supporters joined up, Barcelona are in second-place with 163,000.

In my opinion, comparisons with Benfica, Barcelona, Hamburg and Espanyol aren’t the most accurate because these clubs have a wave of investment from sponsorship and TV revenue in their respective leagues. Supporter-Ownership is a popular feature of South American clubs and this is possibly a better region to analyse than in Europe. The key similarity between South America and Scotland, is the lack of TV investment. Only last year in Argentina, the clubs had to postpone the start of the league season due to uncertainty about the TV contracts which were then ditched and the government nationalised the TV rights to the Primera Divison. Internacional from Brazil have 100,000 members and Argentinian giants Boca Juniors have 58,210 members. With a huge fanbase, I am sure Rangers, or even Celtic, could attract at least 30,000 or 40,000 members.

Boca – an example of supporter-ownership

Having 40,000 members paying £250 would make nearly £10m in a year and I am only assuming that 40,000 is a fair number because in all honesty I have no idea how much this will sell with the Rangers faithful. The potential killer to this idea is the TV investment and sponsorship. Rangers’ merchandising is controlled by JJB Sports, who pay Rangers £4m a year which is seriously limiting the investment from that area. Combine that £4m with only £1m from the SPL TV money and £1m from Carling, it doesn’t really provide enough investment to make it work. Boca Juniors make over £8m from nike every year, and £4m on shirt sponsors Megatone and Toyota – thats just for starters. So potentially, there is avenues which could provide investment for Rangers, the merchandising thing is quite simple – you make good gear, fans will buy it. We are currently tied with Umbro, which again, doesn’t provide the adequate investment as say being with Adidas would.

Money isn’t everything though. The days of £5m players are realistically gone. One of the crucial aspects to Rangers in general, and the Supporter-Ownership is creating a strategy that will allow us to compete long-term. The key things for me are:

• Scouting System – Currently non-existant. Rangers should be focusing on particular areas like Scandanavia or the US in order to sign potentially very-good players like we did with Maurice Edu. At the moment, I would bet there isn’t even a scouting system at Ibrox which may surprise a few folk.
• Youth Development – The introduction of Danny Wilson has been a breath of fresh air, but in all honesty, one player a year isn’t enough. We must be producing at least 5 or 6 kids a year knocking on the door of the manager for a first-team place. Fleck has real potential, and there are a few other excellent players in the Under 19s but they need a chance. We sold Alan Hutton for £9m, if we can produce 1 player every 2 years that will get us £9m then we’re on the right path.
• Sports Science – An ever-evolving part of football. We are lucky to have Adam Owen, head of Sports Science, who is doing an excellent job but we need to move quicker in developing players physically. Scots have a reputation of being physical but some our Scottish players were just steam-rolled physcially by the sheer power of Sevilla last season.

FC Porto and Benfica, both supporter-owned clubs, have nailed the idea of scouting for players and selling them on for a profit. Constant league championships and regular appearances in the latter rounds of the Champions League isn’t bad and shows, if structured correctly, it can work.

Time will tell, at the moment the league title is the priority but I would expect more details to emerge of the potential ownership after the league has been won.