Approximately 26,000 people have banded together online to collectively purchase and manage Ebbsfleet United, a minor-league soccer team in southeast England. Through the website myfootballclub.co.uk, fans pledge £35 to become a member of the MyFootballClub Trust – effectively making them joint owners of the team. Once 50,000 people register, the money will be collected, and if all goes as is expected, a professional soccer team will be run by an online community for the first time in the history.
Members will have total control of the team and vote online to determine everything from match line ups to player transfers. Members will also be able to view all the clubs matches online and will receive statistics on how each player has preformed as well as weekly updates from the team coach about how players are doing during practice.
Apparently, when the site launched in April of 2007, it received over £255,570 in contributions within its first 24 hours. Success for the project has been attributed to increasing ticket prices for matches and high profile trades and lucrative sponsorship deals that have left fans feeling marginalized.
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Maybe this should be the way the England team goes… then the public can only blame themselves when we dont fulfill our high standards.
January 10th, 2008 at 5:09 am
Hello, Jeff.
A quick correction – a mailing list was set up by myfootballclub.co.uk in April 2007 to that would send those who signed up a request for funds. The request would be sent out when 50,000 signed up.
53,051 signed up to that list in the next three months. But only around half that number have sent in the 35 pounds (or more – some have signed up for more than one year) since. The exact number of paying members won’t be announced until the team purchase is complete.
The 255K pounds, however, sounds like a good estimate of the money collected that first day in late July. (I haven’t found a confirmation of that exact amount.)
Additional owners are welcome!
January 15th, 2008 at 9:38 pm