Can A Football Club Show The Route For Democracy Online?
In a rather startling case of the power-of-many online, 2000 fans of English minor league club Ebbsfleet United, pitched in £35 each at community Web site MyFootballClub.co.uk, to purchase their team, and run it by popular consensus. The members would effectively own the club, vote on team selection, decided which players to buy and sell and guide the club up the leagues. Even now, you can become a member of the online website for £35 and play a role in determining the course of action for the club.
In some ways, this is an example of democracy online, and would serve as a good study to see whether or not something like this is a viable proposition. Would a community where membership is rather cheap at £35 be able to create a community with one common direction? Sure Wikipedia is a wonderful example of a community governed website, and so far it has managed to retain authenticity of its content, however there is (a) barely any recognition, (b) the objective is not profit, (c) it does not require a fee, just knowledge, passion and a little bit of time.
The best model for MyFootballClub.co.uk would be to adopt something like what Estonia did for reciprocal democracy with its portal Today I Decide. I am sure it will evolve to adopt such a model complete with a governing committee etc. which no doubt would have their work cut out for them.
Filed under: Digital culture, Ideas & Innovations, Website Alert