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The Arsenal Supporters' Trust

AST debate Arsenal's 2nd place in Football 'Custodianship' surveyPosted on: 15/02/10

Members of the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust met last week to hear Mark Goyder from Tomorrow’s Company, a UK-based ‘think-and-do tank’, present their Football Stewardship Scorecard. The scorecard puts forward five criteria on which football club boards are judged: Putting the club first; Long-termism; Clarity of role and purpose; Engagement of fans and community; and Passion. (The full scorecard for Premier League clubs is set out here).

AST Board member Phil Wall has written up the meeting:

The stewardship scorecard is a tool being developed by Tomorrow’s Company for use in business, but has been applied to Premier League clubs as a trial exercise. Although judgements have been made to produce a draft table, Premier League fans are invited to apply the criteria to the boards and owners of their own clubs to see if they agree with the rankings produced.

Mark noted that since the scorecard was publicly revealed last year further thought has gone into the criteria, and more account should be taken of ‘operational performance’ – in football terms, success on the pitch. Man Utd under the Glazers do not score highly for stewardship, but to many fans this is offset by the continued flow of trophies into Old Trafford.

There are some obvious examples of poor stewardship in English football today: Mike Ashley’s renaming of St James’ Park, which shows a complete lack of understanding of fans’ feelings, and of course the situation at Portsmouth, with four owners in a season, some of whom have never even been seen in person.

Mark raised the question of whether there is perhaps a ‘resource curse’ in football, whereby greater resources flowing in only manage to cause greater problems. This is a situation that’s been seen in the oil industry, where large investment in small economies has led to corruption and greater inequality rather than more wealth for all.

One route that often leads to problems in football is a public share offering. This can take control out of the hands of (albeit wealthy) fans altogether, and large blocks of shares can easily end up with speculators who’ve had no previous connection to the club.

So where are Arsenal on the Tomorrow’s Company scorecard, and how do the AFC Board score on stewardship? The scorecard shows Arsenal in second place, behind only Aston Villa. Some fans may dispute this, given the turnover in the Arsenal boardroom recently, though it can’t be denied that a path has been steered through the building of the best new stadium in club football, while remaining competitive and without saddling the club with unmanageable debt. AST members at the meeting also noted Arsenal’s impressive community and charity work, as well as the way Ivan Gazidis has engaged with fans on issues such as the return of the clock to the inside of the stadium.