Can somebody explain...

[rurikbird]

… why we don't do this?

Yet that financial disparity has not led the Bundesliga clubs to follow English football into selling up to single mega-rich owners, or pricing young adults out of the grounds. Repeatedly, the German clubs have reaffirmed their commitment to the now familiar rule which maintains democratic ownership by fans: that a majority control ("50% plus one"), must be held by members.

"It is a question of philosophy and by far the majority want to stay with it," he said. There are exceptions, with Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg historically owned by the Bayer and Volkswagen corporations. "Nobody loves a club more than the members, and this keeps supporters with that emotion close to the club. We think it gives clubs and the league stability too, because nobody can come overnight and buy a club."

The control by supporters of even these two European giants — Bayern 82% owned by their 187,865 members; Dortmund with voting rights controlled by their 30,000 – links directly to the maintenance of ticket prices as low as €13 at Bayern and €11 at Dortmund in standing areas, and cheaply priced seating too.
"This is about giving people who cannot afford the business seats the opportunity to come," says Seifert. "There is no rule requiring this; it is a feeling of the clubs, to have a mixture of society, the whole society, in our stadiums.
"The democratic control by members also means that if management want to raise ticket prices, the members may say: we want different management."

Christian Müller, the Bundesliga's former chief financial officer, now chief executive of Bundesliga 2 club Dynamo Dresden, recalls the commitment to member-ownership weakening 10 years ago when the league felt itself to be struggling in the Premier League's slipstream. The Bundesliga began then to increase the value of its TV deals, and from 2000 the clubs began to invest in youth academies after the German national team's failure in the European Championship.
"The clubs realised to be successful is not only a question of money," Müller said. "The vast majority of people support the 50%+1 rule. Football is considered to be a public good, and people can be truly a part of it, by being members of a club."

Complete article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/may/22/bundesliga-premier-league-champions-league

So tell me again, why can't we do this? Does it really make you feel better as fans to have a rich foreigner own your club instead of you and fellow supporters? At best, they simply profit-seekers (like our FSG or Kroenke), sometimes they are also incompetent or suck the money out of the club (like Glazers or Hicks & Gillett), at worst they can be shady mafia guys (like Abramovich or that former Man City owner from Singapore). They set exorbitant ticket prices that less and less people can afford, which slowly erodes the atmosphere and the sense of connection people feel with their club. So why aren't we all going up in arms and demanding that the German system be instituted here? Somebody explain this one to me, please.

 

[hamstrung_pigeon]

The former Man City owner was Thaksin Shinawatra, the ex-Prime Minister of Thailand.

 

[Silver Sean]

Type ShareLiverpool into google and you'll find all you need to know.
I'd love it.
Germany has it right. We continue to get shafted.

 

[refugee]

Type ShareLiverpool into google and you'll find all you need to know.
I'd love it.
Germany has it right. We continue to get shafted.

They did themselves a lot of harm when they first started by deliberately excluding non UK investors. They were never going to raise all the money from only Scouse (I know that is the dream, but it wasn't going to happen and they shouldn't have treated everyone else like second class citizens, especially when they were asking 5k per share) investors without a big individual benefactor, but that would defeat the purpose.

 

[Silver Sean]

They did themselves a lot of harm when they first started by deliberately excluding non UK investors. They were never going to raise all the money from only Scouse (I know that is the dream, but it wasn't going to happen and they shouldn't have treated everyone else like second class citizens, especially when they were asking 5k per share) investors without a big individual benefactor, but that would defeat the purpose.

agree with you. Not sure how the German model could ever be taken up here now. shame.

 

[Dirkus_Circus]

tl;dr

Cliff notes anyone?

 

[rurikbird]

Type ShareLiverpool into google and you'll find all you need to know.

It seems to me ShareLiverpool was a short-lived local expression of resentment against Hicks-Gillette. What I'm talking about is a sustained campaign involving all or most clubs in the country to change the ownership rules for everybody.

I'd love it.
Germany has it right. We continue to get shafted.

Yes, we do. But my question is, why most of our fans don't want to lift a finger to change that? Look at it this way: you all now pay much higher ticket prices than fans in Germany, maybe 2 or 3 times higher. Right now the difference in price gets mostly pocketed by the owners. If every LFC fan took that difference and instead of buying an overpriced ticket bought a share of the club instead, then they would be able collectively to buy the majority share of the club easily. With fans in majority control, the ticket prices would probably be 2 or 3 times lower and everybody would save a ton of money every single week.

That's exactly what the owners don't want to happen. They're able to constantly increase the ticket prices, precisely because the fans have no say. So our fans spend much more than the Germans to watch their team and in return get absolutely no control over the club, including the pricing strategy. Talk about an "epic swindle."