For anyone who missed it this was one of the handouts from Supporters' Direct from last night's meeting.
Admin, I've put this is a new thread but if you want to merge it and delete this one that's fine.
A supporters’ trust at Charlton?
What is a trust, and how does it differ from what we have right now?
A supporters’ trust is a democratic, not-for-profit organisation of supporters, committed to strengthening the voice for supporters in the decision making process at a club, and strengthening the links between the club and the community it serves. It is independent to the football club.
It’s legally registered and regulated by the Financial Services Authority, and it can hold assets like a company can. This means that any money raised or shares bought would belong to all members equally, and not need to be held by individuals.
The main differences are in the way a Trust is organised, its strategies and the attitude it has towards issues at the club:
Organisation
A major strength of a supporters trust is its constitution. It is regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and must provide annual accounts, which means it’s transparent. Any paid up members can put themselves forward to be elected to the board of the trust, and the income that the trust raises is spent according to the member’s wishes in line with the registered aims.
Other groups are what are called unincorporated associations, which means the assets – shares, money etc – are held by individual committee members on behalf of the group, who also are liable for things like tax. A Trust’s assets are held by everyone equally, and liabilities, debt and such like come out of the organisation’s funds, not directly from fans’ pockets.
Strategies
Every fan would love a voice and nearly every supporters group under the sun seeks to represent the views of fans. But fans have been consistently ignored for many, many years, and if asking nicely for a hearing would be all it took, it would have worked long ago.
The sad fact is, money talks. Ownership of shares is what really counts. That’s what gives people the right to make decisions that affect the future of the club, not how much passion they have for it.
Fans are the moral owners of club, but until we become involved in legal ownership, we’ll always be easier to ignore or patronize than actually listen to.
The Trusts’ Attitude
A supporters’ trust is about channeling the passion of supporters, into a forward-thinking organisation that looks to the long term offering solutions to the club and community.
On one level a supporters’ trust acts as the guardian of the future of the football club; if they believe that the club is being run incompetently and not in the interests of the fans they will not be afraid to criticise. But, they’re not there to be relentlessly critical. They are also about helping the club, tapping into the skills and expertise of their membership and offering solutions and not just posing problems.
Lots changes in football; Chairman, Managers and Players, but the fans remain, so why shouldn’t they be involved in the big decisions at the football club?
Next Steps?
If people are interested in taking the idea forward there would be a public meeting with everyone invited along which would include a vote on whether to form a trust. A working party would then work with Supporters Direct to come up with a proper constitution and get it registered. Supporters Direct would pay for all the legal work, as well as helping us along with way, not least by putting us in touch with fans at other clubs who are trying to achieve the same things as we want to.
This is not a rebranding exercise of any existing supporters club, whilst both groups want to see the club performing well the supporters trust remains independent from the club and looks to the medium to long term.
Facts & Figures
• Growth: Supporters’ trusts at over 140 clubs.
• Membership: Over 120,000 people are members of supporters’ trusts.
• Ownership: 6 of the 10 richest clubs in the world are owned by their fans. In the UK, 15 clubs in the UK are in ownership by supporter’s trusts
• Partnership: 100 supporters’ trusts now have shareholdings in their clubs.
• Influence: 45 supporters’ trusts have directors on the board of football clubs. Over 40% of these are directly elected by the membership of the trust.
• Reach: Supporters of nearly 70% of clubs in the top five divisions of football in England, and the top four divisions in Scotland have established supporters’ trusts.
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Comments
Chelsea/Man Utd/ Liverpool
Not owned by 'fans'
Of course he supports them, it's his best itnerest for them to do well, I very much doubnt he gave a toss before he bought the club though.
Yes, as I'm fairly sure the owners did actually support Charlton before they bought the club!!
Does the stat mean that a body (such as a supporters trust or equivalent) owns the clubs?
I'm sure I've read that Barcelona is owned by the fans for example.
I think Real Madrid and Barca are owned by the the supporters.
Angels who could dance on a pinhead that was : - )