Ebbsfleet United’s ‘Deal in Principle’
by matt @ 12:58 pm. Blogged under Sport
This week I, like many thousands of others, have almost become the part-owner of a non-league football club residing in the Blue Square Premier… it’s name ‘Ebbsfleet United’. I would rather the members of ‘MyFootballClub’ bought Stevenage Borough instead, but I’ll settle for the club formerly known as Gravesend and Northfleet. However, before everybody gets carried away with talk of fan-owners voting on team selections and tactics, I’d like to cast people’s minds back to January 2002. This was a time when Stevenage Borough announced that they were taking part in a Channel Four TV reality show called ‘You’re The Manager’ with viewers set to vote on team selections by text and email… and guess what? The Football Conference board didn’t ratify the deal so it didn’t happen.
So what I’m wondering is, for all the hype and PR coverage given to Ebbsfleet United and the MyFootballClub, what has changed so much that we would expect the Football Conference board to ratify this ‘deal in principle’ now? Five years on people are more technically savvy for sure, Nationwide are no longer the sponsors and reality entertainment is ever more popular, but with people like Birmingham City co-owner David Sullivan stating their doubts about the whole idea, are we really set to see the Conference board agree to this? Considering that Stevenage Borough Chairman Phil Wallace will vote on this deal, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he felt a little negative about the whole idea following his own efforts to do something similar (and who could blame him?).
A reminder of the last Conference decision, care of the BBC archives: “The presentation from Channel 4 was very impressive and extremely professional.”… “However we do not consider that the best interests of all 22 member clubs would be served if we allowed this proposal to go ahead.”… “Football is a mix of sport and entertainment and it is our opinion that this proposal took away the sporting element and left only the entertainment.” – so how are the MyFootballClub plans different? I suspect we’ll see ratification of the cash injection from the fan-owners (so we will become Ebbsfleet owners), but a NO on the fan management of the team and selections. It’s a shame I don’t still have my Conference League website still running and maybe I’d get a few hundred responses on this 
Technorati Tags: myfootballclub, ebbsfleet united, Gravesend and northfleet, non-league, football conference, blue square premier
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November 15th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
There is a subtle difference here in that people like myself who have signed up to this are actually part-owners of the club, therefore have a vested interest in it. That is significantly different to the C4 experiment in which all that would have been required was to have a mobile phone.
As it is, it remains to be seen quite what level of choice we will have in team selection. I am yet to be convinced that everyone voting on all 11 players will be the concept that finally is settled on, and I feel a large majority will back the head coach’s recommendations.
November 15th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I agree on that difference Ian, but I’m of the opinion that the level of choice will be more ‘token’ influence than reality TV. Headlines from the Telegraph like ‘UK footballing history made as fans pick team‘ do add to the misconceptions… but we’ll have to wait and see!
November 15th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
As usual with football, the media causes a lot of hype and scaremongering, so no wonder the existing fans of Ebbsfleet are concerned. But this is the case with any sort of club takeover (eg Man U fans when Glazer took over…).
Members of MyFC want the best for the club - it’s new, it won’t work perfectly as it’s not been done before but I have a feeling it will work!