Nothing to see here

[rsheard]

Originally Posted By: Dewsbury SAFC

Originally Posted By: rsheard

If there's anything else, let us know. Someone will be able to find the right link to the source.

Here's one for you:

21% of the Society's members fees each year get turned over to My Football Club Ltd. At the moment, that figure is £7.50 per person. If MyFC does reach its target of 50,000 members, that's a not insignificant sum of £375k pa going to a 3rd party privately owned company purely to provide "operating services" to the members' Society.

Does that sit comfortably with you?

That was a debated topic for several weeks when the site first went live. But frankly, it doesn't bother me. I knew about it going in, the amount at that level of membership isn't outrageous given the costs of set-up, salaries, and legal fees.

If the membership level were to explode beyond that level someday, and it may never, there's always a mechanism for renegotiating the fee with the operator.

[Dewsbury SAFC]

It definitely bothers me. It would be interesting to find out from the Manchester United Trust (who have a similar size membership to your society) what their administrative and legal fees are with regard to actually running the society. As far as I am aware, MUST have one paid employee.

 

You also defend this operator fee by saying it is for set-up costs. While I do not disupte that there will have been costs involved in setting up MyFC, why then does this fee stay the same in following years?

 

By the way, the IPS rules on the MyFC are heavily based on Supporters Direct model rules. I'm not sure how much MyFC's lawyers charged for producing them, but I do know that if a Supporters Trust had been set up in the normal manner - as has already been done at Fleet, then the legal fees for producing the society rules and registering with the FSA would have been miniscule. It is all part of the service provided by Supporters Direct.

 

With 50,000 members, generating £375k for MyFootball Club Ltd per year as part of the operator agreement, are you happy that My Football Club Society Ltd (owned by you the members) will be getting good value for money?

 

You say: "there's always a mechanism for renegotiating the fee with the operator." Actually, I'm pretty sure that the annual membership fee is not permitted to fall below £35, and that the 21% "operator" fee is also fixed.

[doheochai]

Originally Posted By: Dewsbury SAFC

It definitely bothers me. It would be interesting to find out from the Manchester United Trust (who have a similar size membership to your society) what their administrative and legal fees are with regard to actually running the society. As far as I am aware, MUST have one paid employee.

You also defend this operator fee by saying it is for set-up costs. While I do not disupte that there will have been costs involved in setting up MyFC, why then does this fee stay the same in following years?

By the way, the IPS rules on the MyFC are heavily based on Supporters Direct model rules. I'm not sure how much MyFC's lawyers charged for producing them, but I do know that if a Supporters Trust had been set up in the normal manner - as has already been done at Fleet, then the legal fees for producing the society rules and registering with the FSA would have been miniscule. It is all part of the service provided by Supporters Direct.

With 50,000 members, generating £375k for MyFootball Club Ltd per year as part of the operator agreement, are you happy that My Football Club Society Ltd (owned by you the members) will be getting good value for money?

You say: "there's always a mechanism for renegotiating the fee with the operator." Actually, I'm pretty sure that the annual membership fee is not permitted to fall below £35, and that the 21% "operator" fee is also fixed.

Again nothing new here - this issue has been gone over in depth on the MyFC forum. As I am an ordinary member of MyFC (and a forum moderator) and not involved in the adminsitrator side I am not going to address this. It is more appropriate for it to be dealt with by the administrators of MyFC. To be honest it really is only an issue for MyFC members as they are the ones stumping up the money.

[Dewsbury SAFC]

Originally Posted By: doheochai

Again nothing new here - this issue has been gone over in depth on the MyFC forum. As I am an ordinary member of MyFC (and a forum moderator) and not involved in the adminsitrator side I am not going to address this. It is more appropriate for it to be dealt with by the administrators of MyFC. To be honest it really is only an issue for MyFC members as they are the ones stumping up the money.

Yes, it is an issue for MyFC members, but it is also an issue to the wider football community that want to see more fan ownership of clubs, and fan representation on the boards of football clubs. There is a very strong Supporters Trust movement in this country already, with Trusts at over 150 clubs (including Fleet). Not one of these Trusts have an operator arrangment with a 3rd party company. My Football Club's founders appear to have sidestepped some of the restrictions of an IPS in order to ensure that they themselves get paid a tidy sum.

How many of the 20,000 MyFC members have joined Supporters Trusts at their own football clubs?

[George Reilly's Hairpiece]

Originally Posted By: doheochai

To be honest it really is only an issue for MyFC members as they are the ones stumping up the money.

Really?

I would have thought that this would be a very important issue for which ever club gets taken over. If there is a mechanism to renegotiate the fee, then why can't it go up if they decision is taken that extra costs now need to be covered (whether this is due to an increase in absolute costs or through a reduction in membership and hence an increase in cost per head). If that happens less money goes to the club and how can it be expected to budget on that basis?