Should Chelsea Fans Buy The Club?

With the advent of DAOs and the blockchain, it's something that probably isn't as unrealistic as it sounds

It looks very much like Chelsea will soon be under new ownership as bidders line up to take the club from Roman Abramovich, who admitted he has put the club up for sale after 20 years of ownership this week.

Roman has won it all as Chelsea owner, and he has as many trophies as he has years at the club. The most important aspect that fans loved about Roman was that he is one of the biggest fans of the club and he celebrated and shared the same emotions as any other fan, and that was so refreshing to see and made the club feel so very family orientated and connected as one during his tenure.

Many concerns have been raised over new ownership and whether they will have the club’s best intentions at heart, and these are warranted fears. Some owners could just see our beloved club as a cash cow to make them money and not have any care for Chelsea FC at all, or at least not like you and I.

So, why don’t you and I buy the club? OK, maybe not You and I exactly, but why don’t Chelsea fans buy the club, a lot like we have the Chelsea Pitch Owners owning Stamford Bridge using 13,000 fans buying shares into it, but using the blockchain to organise the army of global fans?

Is it really that unrealistic? Think about it. Chelsea have almost 20 million followers on Twitter, 30 million on Instagram, and 50 million on Facebook, and that is even before taking into account those who do not do ‘social media’.

So if, for example, every single follower on Chelsea’s social media put in just £40, that would generate the £4bn that Roman Abramovich reportedly wants to sell, and to be honest, that is double the amount that I feel he will actually get for it.

Obviously not every person following Chelsea will be prepared to pay £40 to become a part owner, but this is just an example of how something like this wouldn’t be too unrealistic. Equally, some fans are excessively wealthy and may put in £1m.

Logically it could be difficult, but it would need to be worked a lot like the Chelsea Pitch Owners is worked and use a structure there. Ironically they have people like Thomas Tuchel, Frank Lampard, and John Terry who all have shares in Stamford Bridge there, and I’m sure that if you gave Terry a chance to become a part owner of Chelsea, he would have a wealthy amount of money to put into the club that he loves.

What would be better than a club run by fans? Fans who love and understand the club? Fans who have supported the club since they were kids and made the club their lives.

In Germany they have the 50+ rule that I am a huge fan of. The 50+1 rule. In short, it means that clubs – and, by extension, the fans - hold a majority of their own voting rights. Under German Football League [DFL] rules, football clubs will not be allowed to play in the Bundesliga if commercial investors have more than a 49 percent stake.

In essence, this means that private investors cannot take over clubs and potentially push through measures that prioritise profit over the wishes of supporters. The ruling simultaneously protects against reckless owners and safeguards the democratic customs of German clubs.  

I’m not saying it would be perfect, and to be honest, I’m not totally sure if I would be 100% behind the idea for Chelsea at least. But I wanted to ask the question today to gauge an interest on this and understand what people would think on it and if it is at all possible?

A few good examples of fan owned/part-owned clubs are Bayern Munich, who are 75% fan-owned, Sao Paulo in Brazil, Athletic Club in Spain, Rangers in Scotland who aren't entirely fan-owned but supporters group Club 1872 are the second-largest entity in the boardroom so they get more than just a say when it comes to how the club is run, AFC Wimbledon, amongst many others.

It can work with a structure, it’ll need a vote based system and a board, but it’s been proven to work well numerous times.

Meanwhile, in America, Crypto Enthusiasts are forming DAO to buy the Denver Broncos NFL team.

The following quote is from a recent Forbes article about it:

‘Can you imagine a way of organizing with other people around the world, without knowing each other and establishing your own rules, and making your own decisions autonomously all encoded on a Blockchain? Well, DAOs are making this real.

‘Wikipedia defines DAO (Decentralised Autonomous Organisation) as an organization represented by rules encoded as a transparent computer program, controlled by the organization members, and not influenced by a central government. As the rules are embedded into the code, no managers are needed, thus removing any bureaucracy or hierarchy hurdles.’

Ironically, the DAO fan group trying to buy The Broncos must raise near to 4 billion dollars, and reports claim it could happen.

The effort is being led by Sean O’Brien, a 10-year veteran of Cisco Systems’ legal department. O’Brien said the DAO will go live this week.

One of the major benefits of digital currencies is that they are decentralised. This means they are not controlled by a single institution like a Government or bank, but instead are divided among a variety of computers, networks, and nodes.

We already know footballers involvement with NFT’s, especially John Terry. Maybe he could lead such a fan takeover at Chelsea?

It is becoming more apparent now that buyers are closer to getting a deal done to buy Chelsea, so any efforts to lead a community based purchase would probably too late now. But it is something that interests us here and we wondered about others opinions?

Simon Phillips