Dear WSC
It was good to see your piece on York City Supporters’ Trust in WSC 239, which gave an excellent summary the position at York City. One minor point – it was never the intention of the trust to take a controlling interest in the club. That was dictated by circumstances whereby if the trust had not taken control the club would have folded. So returning to private ownership probably isn’t a setback for the cause of fan ownership. We still retain a 25 per cent share of the club and can now go back to our original objective which was to represent fans – we still have two seats on the club board. Taking the broader perspective, being the major shareholder brings the major responsibility of financial management and raising funds to fill the gap between gate and commercial income and costs. The fans of York City have been magnificent at raising money, but closing that gap proved impossible for the volunteers of the trust to do. Ultimately, “private ownership” was the only way forward. We do wonder if majority fans’ ownership can ever be a realistic option.
Steve Beck, Chairman, York City Supporters’ Trust
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Stories
Indoor football is largely a form of exercise in this country but, as Steve Menary reports, the version known as futsal is a sport in its own right abroad. Can the UK’s FAs catch up?
In three years, England have not won a game and only avoided defeat once. Even that was a 5-5 draw against Cyprus after being three goals ahead.
Sepp Blatter’s weird ways attract derision yet, as Ben Lyttleton reports, the FIFA president is skilfully lining up Michel Platini to succeed him. But Lennart Johansson still hopes Franz Beckenbauer can ride to the rescue
FIFA president Sepp Blatter’s most recent interview in the Financial Times was an odd one, even by his unconventional standards. He laid into Wayne Rooney, urging his coaches to teach him some respect, and claimed that a mystery West Brom director had told him that Chelsea were too good for the Premiership. That was before he criticised the salary players were getting as “pornographic”, which is not the word most people would have chosen to use.