Findings
This section will share a brief history of Newcastle Fans United and take a look at what we learned from this project.
Brief History
Shortly after Keegan’s resignation from Newcastle in early September Peter Williams started www.savenewcastle.com. The site was started because there did not seem to be any real discussion about the possibility of a fan-backed buyout of the club from Mike Ashley. Being a resident of the United States and having no real contacts in Newcastle, creating a website seemed to be the easiest way to help start a discussion on the subject. Shortly after launching the site several thousand people visited it and expressed real interest in supporter ownership.
One person who expressed interest was Peter Lee. Peter had formed a group with some of his business and personal associates called Newcastle Fans United. The group was founded with the express purpose of setting up the correct legal framework for a supporter backed buyout of Newcastle United. After several weeks of talks Peter Williams, along with a couple of other people who had offered their help, agreed to run the web front of Newcastle Fans United while Peter Lee and his associates worked on securing the legal framework and business contacts needed to have a supporter owned Newcastle United.
As the months wore on little headway was made, thanks in part to Mike Ashley’s unresponsive management team. In addition to problems on that front, several people who had promised important connections and support failed to come through on their promises. After months of no real development, support for Newcastle Fans United had visibly slowed and most of the early momentum was lost. The lack of momentum was further slowed by some severe cases of burnout among several key team members. For all of the above reasons Newcastle Fans United is no longer an active group.
Lessons Learned
Here are some of the lessons we learned from this project:
- There is a significant support for the idea of fan ownership from Newcastle fans. Despite not having the “right” connections or a credible public backer we were able to register support for a fan buyout of Newcastle United from several thousand people.
- A large percentage of this support came from outside of the greater Newcastle area. There was support from people all across both the world and the UK.
- Supporters from numerous other clubs expressed their willingness to help fund a supporter buyout of Newcastle United just to see a club in the premiership owned by supporters. There was a strong sense that once one club was able to do it several other clubs would follow. We even had several Sunderland fans express their willingness to financially support the project.
- There is significant institutional encouragement for supporter ownership.
- Supporters Direct is an organization which was founded for the express purpose of helping clubs around the UK form a supporters trust.
- Andy Burnham and several other government officials have expressed support of fan ownership.
- UEFA and FIFA personnel expressed their support for our project.
- A major European supporter-owned club expressed their willingness to help Newcastle with the transition to supporter ownership.
- Through this project numerous people have realized that many major mainland European clubs are owned by their supporters
- There are many people who believe a club needs a billionaire owner like Chelsea’s Abramovich to pump cash into the club in order for the club to succeed in the premiership; they feel that a supporter owned club could not compete. We would like to counter that thinking with the facts that Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Bayern Munich are supporter owned, and clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool, and Arsenal have not had major cash infusions from their ownership.
- People’s largest concern was that supporters would not be able to raise enough funds to purchase the club. While we disagree with this sentiment it is one of the largest obstacles to overcome. Due to this belief a group a wealthy business backers would likely be needed for any succesful bid.
- Supporters would be willing to spend more money on Newcastle United products and tickets if the club was owned by the fans, and all profits were reinvested in the club. See our survey results page.
- Most importantly we have come to believe that the positive support and energy is in place. All that is needed now is the right team to put this thing together!