mwj Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 Why exactly is it not possible? Seems to work pretty well in Germany where EVERY club is owned at least 51% by the supporters. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Feidhlim Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 6 minutes ago, AndyC said: These threads are always hilarious. A supporter buyout at this level would end up a lot worse than what we are going through now. Let this one go people. You're probably right but isn't it the point of the forum to discuss the club? What's best, what isn't? Potential signings? etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 4 minutes ago, mwj said: Why exactly is it not possible? Seems to work pretty well in Germany where EVERY club is owned at least 51% by the supporters. Are you familiar with how this happened? German fan groups never had to buy out a stake in their clubs. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swerbs Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 Fan ownership would be more of a shambles than this lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwj Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 8 minutes ago, Davkaus said: Are you familiar with how this happened? German fan groups never had to buy out a stake in their clubs. Of course, my point is more that its possible for a club to be run that is part or wholly owned by fans, using an elected management structure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MessiWillSignForVilla Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 16 minutes ago, Feidhlim said: Curious to know the source for all of those figures quoted. The last one doesn't make sense to me - does Aston Villa have zero revenue? Are we really losing £300m per year? No wonder Lerner wants out. They were just educated guesses, hence putting the "~" in front of the figures. Obviously the cost of buying a club is going to depend entirely of assets, but League 2 clubs are not often bought for higher than £10m. Most League 2 teams have a yearly wage bill of between £500k - ~£2m, so perhaps my estimate for running them was a little low, though not too much so, however FFP rules determine that wages must account for 55% of Turnover in League 2, so that leaves 45% of your Turnover to be spent on general upkeep and transfers, so the need for fan investment isn't all that high. As for Villa, of course we don't lose £300m per year, that was my highest estimate of what could be expected to be paid in the first year of ownership if the club was sold for £200m + my highest estimate of upkeep costs. Villa are currently spending £65m on wages, our 2014 accounts stated that we made a £4m loss (with a £52m loss the year before) and we have a Net Debt of £102m. That debt will need to be paid off for a start (assuming that it isn't taken care of with the sale from Randy), so that money would need to be stumped up. So if the fans could stump up the cash to buy the club and get rid of that debt, with some shrewd accounting then the fans could buy the club and run it at it's current standard. But I thought the whole point was our current state isn't good enough and we aren't spending enough as a club currently? If the club is making just £4m losses and still hardly spending any money, how can it be expected that it would be any different under fan ownership? We need significant investment if want to get back to just mid-table, imo, roughly £50m-£70m in the current climate of the Premier League and how much other teams are spending, and that's assuming we somehow stay up this season, it's gonna be even more if we have to get out of the Championship too. Unfortunately, football is now a multi-£1B business now, which requires owners to invest significant amounts of money if they want to compete in the Premier League, amounts of money that regular fans just do not have, the idea of a top level, fan takeover in the current climate of football is absurd. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 Portsmouth and Wycombe to name two but I'm not sure why that's relevant. Is it harder to buy an English team than it is a German team, for example? Where am I getting a billion? Where are you getting a billion? Have Leicester spent a billion? If you have a point, I look forward to hearing it ;-) How much in terms of cashflow do you think we will need then? £300m? Remember, this club hasn't been self sustainable for years. You'd need one hell of a CEO to get us to that stage, who do you have in mind? Unless you are planning widespread cuts... Oh. I'm not seeing any kind of sustainable business plan and we wouldn't have the money to chuck at it. Unless we want to be Portsmouth or Wycombe, rattling around in league 2. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 Of course, my point is more that its possible for a club to be run that is part or wholly owned by fans, using an elected management structure Unless it happens league wide you're not playing on the same pitch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dont_do_it_doug. Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 You can't buy a Premier League football club and hope that having £50m in the bank for a rainy day is enough. Simple as that really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwj Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 33 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: Unless it happens league wide you're not playing on the same pitch. How do other clubs affect how Aston Villa is run? The owners (in this case fans), set a governance structure (probably some democratic process) that installs a management structure that is accountable. Pretty much the same as it is now, just substituting Reform Acquisitions Ltd (Randy Lerner) as the majority shareholder. My point is that its entirely POSSIBLE to do this, it wouldn't affect the day to day running of the club at all We would just need to find enough money from somewhere, which is the hard part. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwj Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 37 minutes ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: You can't buy a Premier League football club and hope that having £50m in the bank for a rainy day is enough. Simple as that really. Of course you can, it depends entirely how you run your business and the lines of credit you have open. Its just a bloody business, same as every other one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KHV Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 Aston Villa supporters in charge of Aston Villa, what could possibly go wrong............... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwj Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 You guys understand the difference between OWNING the club and RUNNING the club, right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasoncb Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 (edited) Could do what the United supporters did, those who were unhappy with the Glazers created a spin off club. Edited February 2, 2016 by jasoncb 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KHV Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 2 minutes ago, mwj said: You guys understand the difference between OWNING the club and RUNNING the club, right? It would be a disaster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MessiWillSignForVilla Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 6 minutes ago, mwj said: How do other clubs affect how Aston Villa is run? The owners (in this case fans), set a governance structure (probably some democratic process) that installs a management structure that is accountable. Pretty much the same as it is now, just substituting Reform Acquisitions Ltd (Randy Lerner) as the majority shareholder. My point is that its entirely POSSIBLE to do this, it wouldn't affect the day to day running of the club at all We would just need to find enough money from somewhere, which is the hard part. This is the problem, surely the point of a takeover is that day to day running will be affected so that we are run better, to do say in football's current climate requires money, a lot of money. So it is possible for the fans to take the club over (though I have doubts about stumping up the required capital for the initial bid) but it won't change anything, instead of the blame lying at Lerner's feet it would lie at the feet of the 50,000 or so fans that own the club. As for football being a business the same as every other one, it really isn't. Football is a money pit, no owner can ever expect to make money off of a football club like you could with regular businesses, in 2013 over half of Premier League clubs made losses, and have only been making profits recently thanks to the TV money, but with the way transfer fees are going I can't see it being long until most clubs go back to running losses. There's a reason that most Billionaires don't invest in football clubs, because they aren't like other businesses and are bad investments unless you're willing to piss money away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
useless Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 We're more or less supported by the Illuminati, I'm surprised it hasn't happened already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mwj Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 10 minutes ago, MessiWillSignForVilla said: This is the problem, surely the point of a takeover is that day to day running will be affected so that we are run better, to do say in football's current climate requires money, a lot of money. So it is possible for the fans to take the club over (though I have doubts about stumping up the required capital for the initial bid) but it won't change anything, instead of the blame lying at Lerner's feet it would lie at the feet of the 50,000 or so fans that own the club. As for football being a business the same as every other one, it really isn't. Football is a money pit, no owner can ever expect to make money off of a football club like you could with regular businesses, in 2013 over half of Premier League clubs made losses, and have only been making profits recently thanks to the TV money, but with the way transfer fees are going I can't see it being long until most clubs go back to running losses. There's a reason that most Billionaires don't invest in football clubs, because they aren't like other businesses and are bad investments unless you're willing to piss money away. Yes it will be affected in the sense that a different set of management are employed by the supporters to run the club. I really don't agree with your second paragraph. Just because half the teams are running at a loss doesn't mean every team has to run at a loss. It *IS* a business just like any other business, you have revenue and outgoings and you make sure you spend less than you earn. Doug managed to do it for 20 **** years, including in the PL TV money era. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders0223 Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 2 hours ago, dont_do_it_doug. said: You can't buy a Premier League football club and hope that having £50m in the bank for a rainy day is enough. Simple as that really. True that. http://www.harchester.net/characterProfiles/index.php?season=6&profile=72 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodders0223 Posted February 2, 2016 Share Posted February 2, 2016 (edited) 1 hour ago, mwj said: Of course you can, it depends entirely how you run your business and the lines of credit you have open. Its just a bloody business, same as every other one. 95% of football club's in this country are not a business, they're a money pit. Would love to know what decade you are living in mate. Edited February 2, 2016 by rodders0223 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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