Who ‘Owns’ the Game? A critical reflection on membership owned models of football governance

A significant body of literature has emerged over the past decade contrasting the supposed benefits of a move towards a membership owned/ mutual governance model for sporting clubs in the UK and Ireland (as well as elsewhere throughout Europe). In many cases it is presented as something of a utopian response to the apparent unrelenting commercialisation of sport, mostly association football, and is viewed as something of a final opportunity for supporters of professional (and semi-professional) teams to retain a stake in the welfare and future direction of the clubs to which they are closely tied. This paper recognises the inherent benefits of implementing such a model of sport governance, especially to ‘failing’ clubs, but outlines a number of reasons as to why we should remain cautious about assuming that, in the face of a range of competing models of governance, that a membership-owned approach is necessarily better or more desirable.