2134/19667
Borja Garcia-Garcia
Borja
Garcia-Garcia
Joanna Welford
Joanna
Welford
Whose game is it? Football governance through the eyes of the supporters [Paper #3: Are supporters getting involved in football governance?]
Loughborough University
2015
untagged
Medical and Health Sciences not elsewhere classified
2015-11-27 10:13:25
Report
https://repository.lboro.ac.uk/articles/report/Whose_game_is_it_Football_governance_through_the_eyes_of_the_supporters_Paper_3_Are_supporters_getting_involved_in_football_governance_/9610526
The first two policy papers in this series explored the demand for further regulation of football
from supporters. Taken together, they conclude that supporters have an acute understanding of the
problems with current football governance and are highly critical of how it is governed at the top
level. A number of suggestions were made to address the problems highlighted including reform,
government intervention and increased supporter involvement.
This paper explores the latter point in more detail. If supporters are to be more involved in football
governance – and there has been a recent policy focus on the way that this could improve football
governance – what form might this take? Are supporters seeking out opportunities to involve
themselves in football governance, at their clubs or elsewhere? Calling for greater supporter
involvement is an important step, but it is vital to gain a greater understanding of how supporters
feel about this. Policy recommendations in the area (DCMS 2011, 2013) very much focus on the role
of supporter trusts and the work of Supporters Direct. However, one of the findings is that there is
a variety of avenues through which supporters would like to be involved with football, not
necessarily club ownership via a supporters trust., This paper analyses the supporters’ extent of
engagement with football governance themselves, and the dynamics around this. It further
investigates the scope for supporter engagement and the potential barriers that fans see to their
involvement by current governance structures.
The following paper in the series – Policy Paper #4 – focuses exclusively on club ownership and
supporter trusts.