Sunday 14 September 2008

Sack The Board

Don’t just chant about it. Do it. Make it possible. Now that George Bush has ended the credit crunch (of which rising food prices are not a result) by abolishing capitalism, perhaps even this Government could follow suit?

Football and other major sports clubs could be as they are in, for example, Spain, proper clubs with the fans as their members who elect the board, and who can decline to re-elect it. And their grounds could be as in Italy, owned by their respective local councils.

With Newcastle United on the market, the owner of its sponsor, Northern Rock, should step in any buy it. In other words, nationalise it. And by no means only Newcastle United.

The nationalisation, leading to mutualisation and municipalisation as above, of these important focal points of local patriotism is incomparably preferable to their purchase by sovereign wealth funds, which are in fact foreign states. And it would set a very high-profile example, both of the new patterns of ownership and control in the post-capitalist world, and of the accompanying new regime of pay restraint at the very top.

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