Supporting the supporters

"Clubs rarely make legal profit. Forty-one out of 92 Football League clubs have been in financial administration over the 1992-2007 period. The most prominent latest example is Leeds United" says Sean Hamil, director of Supporter's Direct.

The organization is an initiative funded by public money in United Kingdom which offers support, advice and information to group of football supporters. It promotes the supporter ownership and representation through the formation of Supporter's Trust. The first of them was established at Northampton Town F.C. in 1992.

During all this time, though, Supporter's Direct has been called to help clubs when they are in administration, when things seem to be out of control. And according to Hamil, this is something that should not happen:

"It is too demanding, it is much more difficult to help in moments like that. But clubs should not have to get to that point. But it is risk taken, in football the institution is always expected to be saved because of its public component. Football has never been challenged because it is football. The trust model is simply an ambulance service."

Much has been said about the arrival of foreign investors to British football, but British chairmen are also among the ones to blame. To Sean Hamil the problem is not the origin but the background.

"Not everybody should be able to take over a club. In the last seven years the owners of Chesterfield, Darlington and Exeter have gone to jail. Nelson Mandela could not pass the fit and proper test of the Premier League due to his criminal convictions but the deposed prime-minister of Thailand could. There is something wrong about that," he says.

The problems and stories repeat themselves. Maybe it is time for a change. Time to give more attention to a group with great responsibility for what football has become.

"It has not been about the fans in first place. It is historically a cash business" says Hamil.