The Community football club

For many football fans their club is not just the team they turn out to watch every weekend too many their club is part of the community this is more and more the case the further you go down the leagues. Lower league clubs have a real affinity to the local community or at least they should have. Being part of the community is key for any football club to involve itself in all things local is essential to having a healthy and happy fan base. Just last year Millwall FC supported a local NHS demonstration for saving the local A and E at Lewisham. Things like this can bring the football club closer to the local area and its people. But I do believe football clubs should be hugely united in terms of working with their community. I think councils should be worked with not against and the council and the local people should have a big say in how the club is run. The idea of a community run football club which interests me a lot it is something which in Germany is quite popular and is starting to catch on a little here in E the UK with a few clubs going to fan ownership with the club being owned by the community. For me as a socialist I feel this should be the way many clubs go with a huge emphasis on democracy and fan participation on the direction of the club. I accept that football is all about money but how about running it democratically under fans control with the finances being spread evenly over all the teams in a division at least in term of television money. Why should a Manchester United get more revenue from a TV deal than a Stoke City or anyone else for that matte it is simply not a level playing field and it does need to be addressed in some shape or form. The idea of a maximum salary cap is interesting too with clubs being only allowed to spend so much of a percentage of total revenue on players and their wages. I think on the face of it it sounds a great idea yet implementing it would be very difficult. Unless it was organised on a continent wide or FIFA wide which would be so hard dealing with so many different nations who all have different levels of tax too I would be interested to know how this could work. The clubs should not be play things for the rich billionaires around the world to come in and plunder they should be kept as part of the community and run for and by the community not for profit organisations with mass democracy at their heart. There is a fantastic publication from John Reid a Socialist party member and a RMT regional secretary in London who has published “reclaim the game” a brilliant pamphlet on the beautiful game from a socialist perspective and how things could be better for all. You can read it here http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/ReclaimTheGame/ReclaimtheGame.htm