Remember Ebbsfleet United a small non league football club which used ‘crowd sourcing’ to galvanise members to dip into their pockets for the poultry sum of £35 each. This enabled the club to begin the process of changing ownership and gave the members a vote on picking the team amongst other club related matters.

At the time I commented you could be a member of a football club and have no say in the club at all. Well welcome to premiership ‘crowd sourcing’ aimed at Liverpool Football Club. It’s no secret the Liverpool faithful never wanted the club sold in the first place, let alone in American hands.

On 31st Jan 2008 at 5pm Share Liverpool FC began with a launch at The School of Management, University of Liverpool. This is ‘crowd sourcing’ with ‘bling’ or should I say ‘bling bling’ when you see how much you must pay for the privilege. What’s proposed is a member scheme model not dissimilar to the Barcelona Football Club scheme in Spain.

They perceive that 100,000 members paying £5,000 each is sufficient to raise the £500 million to buy out the present American owners and fund the beginnings of building a new stadium, if Liverpool Football Club are to keep pace with its rivals. The members can only buy 1 share each and each share carries a single voting right i.e. 1 share, 1 vote.

Protection from future buyouts are assured as the members cannot ‘normally’ sell the share and also with 1 share, 1 vote, means no other member will own more of the football club than you. Headed by Dr Rogan Talyor director of the Football Industry Group at Liverpool University who gave an inspired presentation that was greeted with warm applause.

The biggest challenge about this initiative is that no agreement currently exists between Tom Hicks and George Gillett to sell if the funds are raised. This reminds me of David and Goliath from my Sunday school teachings. Dr Talyor & co. are ‘David’ whilst Hicks/Gillett are ‘Goliath’ in what I can only describe as a modern day adaptation .

Will ‘David’ conquer ‘Goliath’ only time will tell as there is so much work to do. This first hurdle of the operation is to establish can the funds be raised. If they were over subscribed then the member share price would come down in price. If under subscribed then they would seek to buy shares instead. Shares in any PLC means voting rights and a say in the club. There are so many different possibilities that I cannot wait to see how this progresses.

As ever I love the fact that it is a ‘crowd sourced’ project and Liverpool Football Club is interesting to follow for a number of reasons:

1. Does ‘crowd sourced’ projects have a price ceiling? £5,000 each maybe too expensive for the masses.

2. Can any ‘crowd sourced’ project generate commitment from 100,000 participants or more?

3. Will the current owners want to sell, if the funds are raised?

4. What effect will this type of ‘crowd sourced’ project have in sport?

I could write 100 questions if I wanted, instead I’ll report back as this progresses. For more information direct click Share Liverpool FC