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20,000 fans now own and run a football club. Equally.

Mike Butcher

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Mike Butcher is the European Editor for TechCrunch. A former grunge rock drummer, he became a long time journalist, and has since written for UK national newspapers and magazines including The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The New Statesman. Mike is also a co-founder and shareholder of TechHub, a co-working space/service/community with several locations... → Learn More

Tuesday, November 13th, 2007
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Talk about crowd sourcing. Fans’ community website MyFootballClub has agreed a deal to take over Blue Square Premier outfit Ebbsfleet United. The 20,000 MyFootballClub members have each paid £35 to provide the £700,000 necessary for the takeover and will all own an equal share in the club, be able to vote on transfers, player selection and major decisions. Ebbsfleet chairman Jason Botley told the BBC “We are united in believing this is a great opportunity.” What we need next is a text messaging system so that the fans can control which players are put on or taken off during the game…
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  • Keith

    Football2.0 ;-)

  • http://www.broadstuff.com alan p

    This is an interesting trend that the ‘Net makes easier.

    Fwiw there is emerging evidence that “we the People” prefer social enterprises to for-profits for more personal areas of our lives (eg healthcare) – this will have an impact on future online business models

  • http://www.scribblesheet.co.uk JohnofScribbleSheet

    People power wins the day. I think this has been a fantastic success….so far. However, I wonder if group decision making on transfers, team selection etc will be the best way forward for the club.

    In any case I wish them the best.

  • http://doncrowley.blogspot.com dc crowley

    - they’ll never make it :-D
    - Where is Ebbsfleet anyway!
    - You can’t do much with 700K in football.
    - I feel sorry for the players (20,000 captains! Good grief)

  • http://www.j0n.org jon

    Fantastic idea. The text messaging idea could also provide an additional revenue stream for the club. If 25% of those 20,000 people text in each match at a price of £1 per message (pretty cheap compared to most text in services) that’ll mean a massive addition to the money the club takes for tickets and merchandise.

    Love the idea. Awesome.

  • Mike Butcher

    @jon – then do it.

  • http://www.secretarialblog.co.uk Ben S.

    I am one of the proud owners of Ebsfleet United as I loved the idea when I first heard about it. Web 2.0 football for the masses. I think it can be a success – isn’t there “wisdom of crowds” (Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few – James Surowiecki ) being applied to this?

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