Fan-owned football clubs are gaining popularity, offering a unique model where supporters have a significant say in how their beloved teams are run. But how exactly do these clubs function? This guide from CauHoi2025.UK.COM breaks down the intricacies of fan ownership, its benefits, and examples of successful clubs. Discover how you can be more than just a spectator – become an owner! Let’s explore fan-owned clubs, community ownership, and supporter involvement.
1. Understanding Fan Ownership in Football
Fan ownership in football represents a paradigm shift in the traditional sports business model. Instead of being controlled by wealthy individuals or corporations, these clubs place the power in the hands of the supporters. This model ensures that the club’s decisions align with the community’s best interests and fosters a deeper connection between the team and its fanbase.
1.1. The Core Principle: 50+1 Rule
The Football Supporters Association (FSA) defines fan/community ownership as requiring a minimum of 50% + 1 of the voting rights of the club to be collectively controlled by a democratic entity. This entity has an open and inclusive membership based on one member, one vote, with no substantial barriers to participation as a voting member. This ’50+1′ rule, prevalent in the German Bundesliga, ensures that fans retain majority control, preventing any single investor from dominating the club’s decisions. According to a 2022 report by Supporters Direct, this model contributes to the Bundesliga’s top-quality play, high average attendances, low ticket prices, and vibrant fan culture.
1.2. Community Ownership in Practice
Community ownership means that voting members get to choose who runs their football club. All members are eligible to put themselves forward for election to be one of those that run their club.
It does not mean that as members you get to decide, for example, who the Team Manager should be or which players the manager should sign or move on. At the end of the day, professional football clubs are commercial organisations in competition with each other and therefore much of the information that is commonly accepted as commercially sensitive, such as transfer fees and details of players’ contracts etc, would remain confidential whether or not a club is ‘community owned’.
2. Benefits of Fan Ownership
Fan ownership offers numerous advantages over traditional ownership models, creating a more sustainable and community-focused approach to running a football club.
2.1. Reinvestment of Profits
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.
2.2. Stronger Community Partnerships
A club owned by its community has the potential to develop deeper longer-term partnerships, particularly local authorities who historically favour this model, and can attract a different type of investment and utilise a different type of finance.
2.3. Enhanced Transparency and Protection
Community-owned clubs offer greater protection and transparency within their constitution, which appeals to partners, funders, and sponsors. Giving people the chance to own a club can increase their connection with it, so people share the responsibility of sustaining ‘their’ club, unlocking more volunteers and participation. If supporters know that the money they spend will be reinvested in the club, they are more likely to spend or donate more.
3. Examples of Fan-Owned Clubs
Fan ownership is present across various levels of football, showcasing its viability and impact.
3.1. UK Examples
In English football, the highest-placed fan-owned clubs are Exeter City and newly promoted AFC Wimbledon in EFL1. In National League North/South, Chester FC, Hereford FC, Merthyr Town, Scarborough Athletic, Bath City and Tonbridge Angels are all fan-owned clubs.
North of the border, fan-ownership is strongly represented in the professional football leagues. In the Scottish Premiership, there are Hearts, St. Mirren and Motherwell. In the Championship there are Greenock Morton and Partick Thistle. In Scottish League 2, Clyde FC, Stirling Albion and newly relegated Annan Athletic complete the set of fan-owned clubs.
3.2. AFC Wimbledon: A Success Story
Without a crystal ball, who knows? The circumstances surrounding each fan-owned club do vary, but for the best example of progression of a fan-owned club from very humble beginnings, look no further than AFC Wimbledon.
The club was founded in 2002 by former supporters of Wimbledon FC after the FA allowed that club to relocate to Milton Keynes. Most of the Wimbledon supporters were very strongly opposed to moving the club so far away, so consequently, members of the Wimbledon Independent Supporters’ Association agreed at a meeting on 30 May 2002 to start the club again from scratch and to create a new community-based club named AFC Wimbledon under the ownership of the ‘Dons Trust’.
AFC Wimbledon entered a ground–sharing arrangement with Kingstonian to play home fixtures there and were duly admitted to the Premier Division of the Combined Counties League (Step 5) in August 2002 and subsequently acquired ‘Kingsmeadow’ in 2003 after Kingstonian got into financial difficulties.
AFC Wimbledon steadily moved up through the Non-League pyramid and were promoted to EFL 2 via the play-offs in 2011.
In 2015, AFC Wimbledon agreed plans to sell Kingsmeadow to Chelsea in order to help finance their plans to move to a new stadium on the site of the defunct Wimbledon Greyhound Stadium, only 250 yards away from the original Plough Lane, Wimbledon’s home until 1991. Chelsea’s intention was to use the ground for their own youth and women’s teams, resulting in Kingstonian having to groundshare with Leatherhead and latterly Corinthian-Casuals.
In November 2020, the AFC Wimbledon moved to their brand new 9,000 capacity Plough Lane stadium (see above photograph).
