Ed Mayo, Secretary General of Co-operatives UK, delivered an inspiring keynote speech at the policy seminar – Community Shares – Taking Ownership Local – in London recently and paid special attention to co-operative football.
In his speech to an audience of over 100 – Future potential for community investment, Building on the lessons - Ed said the way to improve football in the UK is to follow the approach of leading Spanish clubs and hand them over to their fans.
"Of the 11 players who started out on the field for Spain’s winning World Cup team, 10 of them play for a co-operative,” he said to a packed audience of over 100 representatives from HM Treasury, The Office for Civil Society, The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) and the Financial Services Authority (FSA).
“FC Barcelona is the poster child of co-operative football and I am delighted that, with Supporters Direct, we have launched a report and the first UK version of the Barcelona statutes – with the support and encouragement of Barca’s outgoing President Joan LaPorta. Barcelona has 170,000 members and is a remarkable case of democratic innovation – drawing members jury-style by lot for its Delegate Assemblies. If you want to change the Board in Barcelona, you vote for it, as 53,000 did in the elections last month.
“The health warnings apply. Not all Spanish clubs are organised on anything like this model and there is if anything more of a common tradition of ownership by fans in Germany. However, you can only grow community ownership not import it (there are fifteen clubs now in the UK organised like this – the most recent is Lewes – but not in the top flight). “But perhaps there is a Spanish recipe here that we too can enjoy.”
Jim Brown, lead consultant for the community shares programme explained that "People do things because it is something they are passionate about - for communities involved in community shares, their passion or interest may be to save their local pub or shop from closure, create renewable forms of energy, regenerate inner city areas or even save a historic pier, as in the case of Hastings Pier.
One of the clear messages of the day was that community building was at the heart of a successful community share offer. This takes passion and hard work and was not an easy option but the results speak for themselves - an engaged community with democratic control who may also be the users of the service, the employees, board member or volunteer all working to ensure the success of the enterprise.
The closing advice came from Paul Sharma, FSA. He made the clear the burden of responsibility for those undertaking a share offer and was delighted that the new Practitioners Guide to shares and bonds provided just the guidance required.
The policy seminar also saw the launch of two new guides to community share issues - Community Shares: A Practitioner's Guide http://www.communityshares.org.uk/sites/default/files/Practitioner's%20Guide_FINAL_7%207%2010.pdf
and Investing in Community Shares http://www.communityshares.org.uk/sites/default/files/Investing%20in%20community%20shares_A-Z_FINAL%201%207%2010.pdf
The new guides have been released by a coalition of organisations that provide local enterprise support, including Co-operatives UK and the Development Trusts Association (DTA).
The Community Shares Programme is a two-year action research project, launched in January 2009, due to a huge surge of interest in community investment. There have been a total of 40 new schemes in the last twelve months alone. The registration of new Industrial and Provident Societies (IPSs) more than doubled in the last quarter of 2009 and recent initiatives have raised more than £42m from over 30,000 community investors across the UK.
One of the ten projects currently being supported by the project is FC United of Manchester which plans to raise funds through community shares towards the cost of a new stadium
The new football report - Barca – fan ownership and the future of football clubs’ - and the full FC Barcelona statutes are available on line at www.uk.coop/barca.
Notes to Editors:
To arrange an interview with Ed Mayo please contact Christina Stocks at Ethos public relations: 0161 830 7640 or email christina.stocks@ethos-pr.com
