Whither Bosso and community ownership

Bruce Ndlovu
In the past few weeks, attention has turned to the financial state and ownership of one of the countryaï¿½ï¿½s biggest soccer sides, Highlanders Football Club.

Bossoaï¿½ï¿½s financial troubles are well documented, but things reached tipping point in the last few weeks as it has become increasingly apparent that the team needed urgent exorcism of its financial demons.

Club board chairman Mgcini Nkolomi revealed that the club was only surviving by the skin of its teeth, as it owed almost a million dollars to various creditors.

aï¿½?We are approaching probably the $1 million mark in terms of our debt but the attitude of our members is that we (the administrators) are there to deal with the debt.

aï¿½?But if we decide to do what we feel is right for this club then tomorrow the members will be up in arms, right now members resolved ukuthi yi team yabantu leyi so we will go that route and members can contribute $5 per year but do you think we can clear the debt with such contributions?aï¿½? he told journalists.

Bosso has struggled to pay winning bonuses for both coaches and players this season, as financial pressure on one of the countryaï¿½ï¿½s football giants increases in economically uncertain times. While most people will look at the clubaï¿½ï¿½s alarming debt as the most important aspect pointed out by Nkolomi, his insinuation that club members will reject the idea that the team should sell its shares to individual interests in order to achieve financial solvency also needs to be looked at with equal scrutiny.

According to Nkolomi club members will be given the chance to respond to suggestions that the clubaï¿½ï¿½s shares should be parcelled out to interested buyers to help wipe out the clubaï¿½ï¿½s ballooning debt.

The idea is expected to suffer a stillbirth, as club members have in the past been vehemently opposed to suggestions that the club might be moved away from its current community ownership model.

Already the fear factor has already been stoked, with rumour mongers firing up the Bosso faithfuls by suggesting that the club was going to be sold to a Bindura cash baron who might move Bulawayoaï¿½ï¿½s joy and pride to that part of the country.

With the clubaï¿½ï¿½s debt as it is, one is forced to scrutinise whether the community ownership of football teams is still a viable business model for football clubs, particularly for teams that compete at the apex of the log.

Globally teams have moved away from the community ownership of clubs, particularly in the worldaï¿½ï¿½s most followed league, the English Premiership. According to The Guardian, one in three football sides in the top flight or the second tier are owned by foreign interests, most of who have bought the sides outright or have acquired a major chunk of the sides.

Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool are just some of the sides owned by big business interests or moguls, whose financial muscle has meant that the gap between the big five or six clubs and the rest has grown considerably over the last two decades.

However, a variant of the community ownership model is still going strong in Spain, where probably two of the worldaï¿½ï¿½s biggest club sides, Barcelona and Real Madrid still run under this model.

Real Madrid along with Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna, are run under a registered association. This means that the sides are owned by their supporters who elect the club president with the club president not allowed to invest his own money into the club while the club can only spend what it earns, which is mainly derived through merchandise sales, television rights and ticket sales. Unlike a limited company, it is not possible to purchase shares in the club, but only membership.

The members of Real Madrid, called socios, form an assembly of delegates which is the highest governing body of the club which gathers every four years to elect its president.

In neighbouring South Africa, Irvin Khoza, Kaizer Motaung and Patrice Motsepe own Orlando Pirates, Kaizer Chiefs and Mamelodi Sundowns, three of the biggest sides in that country who have established a monopoly over the silverware available in that countryaï¿½ï¿½s top flight.

With so many of the worldaï¿½ï¿½s top sides turning to private ownership, one wonders why supporters of the countryaï¿½ï¿½s two biggest sides, Highlanders and Dynamos, have been so vehemently opposed to this model.

While fans of both teams might point out how Real Madrid and Barcelona have become global giants with that model, it is important to note that those teams earn their revenue in ways that they havenaï¿½ï¿½t been able to.

Until a new piece of legislation which came into effect in April this year, The Catalans and Galacticos could negotiate individually for TV rights, which saw them make a whoppingAï¿½ aï¿½ï¿½140 million each while former champions Atletico Madrid only got aï¿½ï¿½42 million and the bottom club Almeria got aï¿½ï¿½18 million only.

Bosso and DeMbare have never enjoyed a similar luxury under the PSLaï¿½ï¿½s licensing deal with Supersport, as TV rights are negotiated for collectively and distributed evenly across all 16 sides in the league.

Madrid and Barcelona are also able to make a pretty penny from fans eager to wear a replica of Ronaldoaï¿½ï¿½s famous number seven or the mercurial Lionel Messiaï¿½ï¿½s number 10. For the two local giants, this is still a largely untapped source, particularly for Bosso, with measures to tackle counterfeit club regalia only being intensified now.

This then explains why a side like Bosso struggles to compete with other teams on the transfer market, unlike Barcelona and Madrid who attract the cream of world soccer, instead becoming a selling club that is over reliant on its junior policy. As season ticket sales are not yet an option in Zimbabwe, gate takings, which fluctuate with the performance of the team have become the sideaï¿½ï¿½s main source of income.

However, individual club ownership does not have a rosy history in local football which might explain the fansaï¿½ï¿½ apprehensiveness about parcelling out the majority stake in their beloved sides.

Clubs like AmaZulu, Shooting Stars, Motor Action and Sporting Lions have all been individually owned entities that have all but disappeared and now exist only in the history books.

Despite their own recent upheavals, Caps United have however, proved that it is possible for an individually owned side to survive, albeit with a larger support base, which is not too dissimilar to that enjoyed by both DeMbare and Bosso.

Regardless of the success of their foe, the sneer from fans of the two teams is that it is only a matter of time before a privately owned side collapses.

If the resolution by the clubaï¿½ï¿½s board that new legislation will block the sale of shares to private interests is anything to go by, it will be a while before any individual has a stake in Bosso.