Dear WSC
It was good to see your piece on York City Supporters’ Trust in WSC 239, which gave an excellent summary the position at York City. One minor point – it was never the intention of the trust to take a controlling interest in the club. That was dictated by circumstances whereby if the trust had not taken control the club would have folded. So returning to private ownership probably isn’t a setback for the cause of fan ownership. We still retain a 25 per cent share of the club and can now go back to our original objective which was to represent fans – we still have two seats on the club board. Taking the broader perspective, being the major shareholder brings the major responsibility of financial management and raising funds to fill the gap between gate and commercial income and costs. The fans of York City have been magnificent at raising money, but closing that gap proved impossible for the volunteers of the trust to do. Ultimately, “private ownership” was the only way forward. We do wonder if majority fans’ ownership can ever be a realistic option.
Steve Beck, Chairman, York City Supporters’ Trust
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Stories
There are no official feeder clubs in England, to the relief of Jon Spurling. But, as he reports, Arsenal and others are busy doing abroad what they can’t get away with at home
Feeder clubs are very much in vogue – and not always in the expected places. Blackpool’s Latvian director Valery Belokon is currently setting up a “farm club” in his homeland and Sheffield United, who already control Chinese side Chengdu Blades, are discussing a link-up with Sparta Rotterdam. Top clubs – Manchester United with Royal Antwerp, Arsenal with Beveren – led the way.
The financial muscle of Bundesliga clubs is hurting Germany’s lesser lights in unexpected ways. As Paul Joyce explains, ill‑regarded but well funded B teams are squeezing out lower-league sides
In December, José Mourinho dismissed English reserve competitions as “not good enough” for his starlets. “This country should look to other countries, to France and Spain,” where second teams compete in the professional leagues, he declared. He would “love to see” a Chelsea B side play in the Championship. If Mourinho looked to Germany, however, he would see that such an integration of reserve sides has proved deeply unpopular.
New owners and a new ground loom for Liverpool. Robert Fordham reports
“In a strange way, it was also oddly reassuring. The whole soap opera signalled that, even as European Champions, Liverpool Football Club could still act like an unsophisticated local diners’ club or a parochial village-hall committee. We were still more of a flawed community than a slick corporation.” This (along with the player staying) is the bright side author John Williams finds in the surreal saga that saw Steven Gerrard come so close to leaving Anfield six weeks after lifting the European Cup. But the club Williams has followed all his life are on the brink of the biggest overnight change in their history. Slick corporation here we come.
Ian Plenderleith goes in search of some serious football journalism and after reading a series of exposés of FIFA shenanigans finds some unintended laughs in the governing body’s code of ethics
For all the thousands of sites about football, very few are devoted to old-fashioned investigative journalism aimed at exposing the greedy and corrupt. One such rarity is Play The Game, a Denmark-based and funded site that calls itself “home for the homeless questions in sport” and covers in depth many stories neglected elsewhere.