Football Finance: Fan's Fighting Back?

We have seen it over the last number of year's of club's fans fighting back against the way the club is being run. My own club Liverpool experienced this when the first supporters union in the British game was formed by a number of supporters in the Sandon(where LFC was founded) on a November night. Spirit of Shankly, set the precedent that we seen in Manchester, Portsmouth and recently as last weekend in North London.

The Black Scarf Movement, a group of Arsenal fans wondering "where has their Arsenal gone", its well documented since the move to the Emirates from Highbury that Arsenal have failed to win a trophy. For the majority of Arsenal supporters patience is wearing thin, but the circumstances surrounding this should bring it home how clubs view football supporters. In September just gone, an article written in the Guardian by Daniel Harris summed up how clubs view us: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/sep/27/arsenal-ticket-prices

Football clubs need to remember without football supporters, clubs would seize to exist. The amount of money pouring into the game you would think ticket prices would decrease on some level as was set out at the beginning of the Premier League's formation in the early 90's. Comparisons with the Bundesliga on this level are totally the opposite, whereas the German clubs encourage the passion of their supporters with ticket prices as much as getting into a League of Ireland game in here Ireland. A couple of week's ago, one particular journalist portrayed the report regarding arrests at German football games as a disease.

When in fact if he actually researched it further he would have noticed that the arrests are minimal compared to the arrests at Premier League games. Unfortunately this particular journalist trumpets "the little old England" myth that the Premier League is the best league in the world but for supporters paying to go to games this couldn't be further from the truth.

The Football Supporters' Federation has encouraged good things among supporters groups, the Black Scarf Movement at Arsenal much like their rivals at Liverpool and United have protested against the systematic "raping" of supporters. It was bound to come to a head especially when a club like Arsenal are now being run as a business and not a football club representing its supporters. Recently at the North-London derby, th cheapest ticket was £92(sterling), madness. The news that Portsmouth supporters could be about to take control of their club should be something that all supporters of all clubs should be aiming for. Until this happens the soul of football will be lost among players such as Liam Ridgewell wiping his arse with 20 pound notes on the toilet.

Football supporters money is been used to pay the likes of  fat cat jokers who clearly have no love for the game and in it for the money. Not all players are like the above mentioned but if I was a West Brom supporter and seen the likes of any Liverpool player doing that, I would questioning what is the future of football. Football supporters need to unite in a common cause as Arsenal supporters showed on Saturday: "kicking greed out of football".