Gästkrönika: Spansk fotboll och en havererad ekonomi
Den här gången kommer gästkrönikan från den spanska huvudstaden, Madrid. Emilio Abejon berättar om hur det gick till när medlemsdemokratin försvann och vilka konsekvenser det fick för den spanska fotbollen. Framtiden är oviss men diskuteras på regeringsnivå.
In 1992 almost all Spanish professional football clubs were obliged by law to become limited companies, only four namely Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Athletic de Bilbao and Osasuna were allowed to stay incorporated as members based clubs. This measure intended to avoid the financial problems of football clubs by replacing the supporters-owners of those days by investors that could take control of clubs, inject funds and therefore would to take care of their investments thus contributing to the wished financial stability.
This move to deliberately replace supporters for investors ignored two important facts. First the social and cultural qualities of the football clubs, qualities that attach them to the communities that they belong to, and second that the financial troubles of football clubs depend on different reasons such as the social relevance that football gives to owners and the structural causes due to it being an activity where success is measured as the relative position not on absolute measures such as economic profit. Eliminating supporters from the governance of football clubs meant also to get rid of the only stakeholder interested in the long term survival of the clubs.
The investors attracted by football were, in the end, mostly a blend of millionaires willing to gain popularity or crooks that wanted to buy the land on where the stadia were built, since it was undervalued under the accounting rules used to value the clubs when they were sold.
The consequences of this new ownership and governance structure in our football have been twofold, first the complete detachment of the constituent communities of fans from the club they support (from participants to customers). The clubs, now complete commercial institutions have dismissed the original functions they played in their communities and what’s worse, the financial stability sought with the move towards corporatization of the clubs has not only not been solved but become much worse. Total debt of clubs in Spain is now more than six times bigger than in 1992 even adjusting for inflation.
Due to this problems, along the years since 1992 supporters have organized themselves in different associations of supporters, minority shareholders etc which despite their differences all had the goal to increase supporters representation in clubs. In most cases the groups had to face the animosity of the owners and the apathy of the rest of supporters that thought that nothing could be done. These groups have since then managed to build an important membership base through hard work and have built good reputation among supporters and other stakeholders.
In 2008 most of these organizations got together in FASFE a federation of the different groups that has been representing all of them before the football authorities and the government. The most important of its goals has been to persuade the government to change the law and allow clubs to be members based again regaining democracy for our football. This demand has been included in the first drafts of the new Professional Sports Act that will hopefully be passed sometime this year.
The story of limited companies in Spanish football has given us two lessons that we will not forget, the first one is that football clubs are an essential part in many communities and if they become full commercial entities with no role for supporters then its role within their communities is weakened or even completely destroyed. The second lesson is that football fans are not to blame for the financial problems of the clubs, moreover, supporters if given the adequate information and proper means of participation can become a good influence towards financial sound management, because fans are the only stakeholder interested in the survival of the clubs.
Emilio Abejon
Asociación Señales de Humo (At Madrid supporters trust) and FASFE
