SIR Alex Ferguson once asked his friend Mike Dillon, then the PR chief at Ladbrokes, about getting into horse ownership. Dillon told him to imagine standing under a cold shower ripping up £50 notes.
If someone were to ask me about owning a football club I’d develop Dillon’s theme: imagine throwing your money, hard earned or otherwise at a manager and players who turn out to be a bunch of tumshies, then sitting down to “enjoy” the match in your comfy seat while all around you are people who think the price of a ticket entitles them – all at the top of their voice – to defame you and curse you, doubt the marital status of your parentage, and generally compare you to a dolt and a dullard, though not in such polite terms, while all the time demanding that you spend more of your cash on “their” club and sack the manager and the board that includes you.
It never ceases to amaze me that any sane person wants to own a football club. Yet I’ve known many decent business people who have invested their precious time and oodles of money in becoming a director and sometimes the outright owner of football clubs the length and breadth of this land.
Why do they do it? I don’t accept the usual suggestions that it is all about an ego trip, not least because the ego is the thing that suffers most when a club is unsuccessful.
No, it’s usually because they are supporters of the club and they think they can bring something to an institution that they genuinely want to succeed. Either that or they’re into some huge money-laundering scam or a fraud or – quite laughably – because they think they can make some money as an owner or director in Scottish football.
The only man who has made some moolah in the past three decades was Fergus McCann at Celtic – but then Fergus never let his feelings for the club get in the way of the hard business sense underneath that bunnet of his.
The only other reason I can see for owning a club is so you can get tickets for the big matches or because you are really mad and want to serve your time on SFA and SPFL committees so you can delude yourself into thinking that you are running the game in Scotland.
Let me be blunt. Being a business person-supporter and wanting to own your club is normally a huge mistake for any sane individual, especially if that club is a biggie like, say, Rangers FC.
I haven’t got the time and nor is there enough room in 10 editions of The National to go over the problems of Rangers, on and off the pitch, as one of the banners in Ibrox stated on Sunday. The hoisting of those banners was overdue, because there has been very considerable disquiet among the supporters for some time, and I’m not telling Dave King or the board something they don’t know.
The upset was only compounded by the Scottish Cup semi-final drubbing by Celtic, and now it is out in the open that even the most loyal Bears are not happy with what is happening in the boardroom and backroom at Rangers.
The reason why that is very worrying for Rangers is that it is their fans who have kept the club going in recent years. Yes, Dave King and his fellow directors have pumped in money, but if the fans of Rangers walked away even temporarily by, for example, not renewing season tickets in protest at the perceived failure of the club, then things would get drastically worse at Ibrox and Auchenhowie, especially as there is no obvious person out there to take on the debts and re-finance Rangers.
That would not be the best solution for the club. I have said it for years and repeat it again – Rangers’ huge support base should own Rangers, along the lines of Barcelona, Real Madrid, Porto, Sporting Lisbon, every sports club in Sweden and Turkey and an increasing number in England.
By fan ownership I mean the majority of share in the hands of a fan-run group such as a trust.
I don’t quite know how it would operate, but surely only genuine fan ownership of Rangers is the way forward for the club.
Don’t say it can’t be done in Scotland, because it’s already being done, with Motherwell FC currently the highest-placed club in Scotland owned by its fans. Remember, too, that Ann Budge’s five year plan to save and rejuvenate Hearts runs out next year and the club will then be owned by the Tynecastle club’s ordinary supporters via the Foundation of Hearts.
Those two will be joined in the Premiership next season by fan-owned St Mirren, so a quarter of the Premiership will be owned by the massed ranks of their supporters.
If Rangers could be fanowned, what a game changer that would be for Scottish football. Must be worth thinking about, surely
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