Interview: Dave Boyle

David Hickey, Regeneration & Renewal, 28 June 2010

Dave Boyle has a spring in his step, which is only partly explained by the Astroturf-like carpeting in his central London office. Boyle is chief executive of Supporters Direct, which this year marked its tenth year as the governing body for UK football supporters' trusts. He has risen through its small ranks since joining as a development worker in 2000 when the former Labour government set it up as a not-for-profit body dedicated to promoting democratic supporter ownership in football clubs.

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Audio: Dave Boyle talks to online editor David Hickey (29min 08sec)

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The main reason for Boyle's high spirits, however, is that his organisation's work has recently enjoyed a significant boost to its profile. Football club ownership became an unlikely general election issue, partly forced onto the political agenda by Manchester United and Liverpool supporters' horror at the debt being run up by the clubs' US owners. Labour's election manifesto contained plans to legislate to allow fans to take greater ownership of their clubs. And in their manifesto, the Conservatives promised to reform football's governance arrangements "to enable co-operative ownership models to be established by supporters", a pledge that also found its way into the coalition agreement with the Liberal Democrats.

Since Supporters Direct was set up, Boyle says that supporters' trusts, which take the form of industrial and provident societies (IPS), have invested around £25 million in their clubs by buying shares. Boyle estimates that cash injections from supporters' trusts, of which there are now around 160 in the UK, have helped to save nearly 40 financially stricken clubs. "We found that supporters tend to get into ownership when the club is on its knees," he says. Unfortunately there have been plenty of opportunities: Boyle points out that a report published by Coventry University found that 56 clubs in the English leagues became insolvent between 1986 and 2008. "This is not a sector that's known for the sensible and prudential management of its finances," he says.

Boyle believes that the fact that supporter ownership of clubs became an election issue reflects the fact that politicians recognised that football clubs have a wider role to play within communities than simply enriching shareholders. "The notion that profit should be invested back in the business is instinctively part of your desire as a football fan," says Boyle. "That's where Supporters Direct comes in. We're trying to turn sports clubs into social enterprises, not only because they have a social rather than economic purpose, but also because I think they'd be better businesses. I'm really pleased it became an election issue because the market will not take note of this without regulation."

Boyle also sees supporters' trusts as the embodiment of Prime Minister David Cameron's "Big Society" idea of grass-roots activists doing social good. "There's this idea underpinning a lot of community engagement work that, if we could just get the method of engagement right, then people will engage; that if we could all be more middle-class and volunteer, then life would be better," he says. "But a lot of people are not interested in some of things which the Big Society agenda seems to suggest they might want to be involved in. While there is a disconnect between a lot of people's sense of ownership of their local authority, that doesn't exist in football clubs, where they feel part of the family. Their lives and their identities are wrapped around their club like a double helix."

It is of course possible that a football club that better reflects its community might also end up having to lower its ambitions. "In most cases, if a community wants (there to be) a football club, the most sensible approach is for it to support the club at the level the community is comfortable with (and that is sustainable)," says Boyle. "If that turns out to be four divisions below where they've traditionally played, then I've not got a problem with that. It will be a better football club and a better community if local people are involved in the club's management."

He also believes that some clubs could do more to benefit their local area. "Sports clubs in the main are fantastic community assets, but, to some extent, the benefit the community derives from them has been almost accidental - as the result of corporate social responsibility rather than proper community engagement. But what's the point of the club doing social exclusion work when it might also be contributing to social exclusion in the community? It would be better if the club could be paying people a living wage, employing local people who had been long-term unemployed, or using local suppliers."

As an exemplar of a football club investing in their community, Boyle plucks an example from the lower leagues. "Look at Exeter City. As well as growing their gate from 2,000 to 5,000 under community ownership, they started to engage with locals in a different way," he says. "Exeter have a local travel plan: they're looking at how they can minimise traffic disruption (on match days). That involved them working with other partners in the area to find out how they can get fans using the bus more. With a lot of clubs' engagement work, it's hard not to look at it as the club trying to butter up the community to enable them to get planning permission for a commercial development from which the community will get little benefit."

Boyle takes particular aim at the trend towards relocating stadiums away from the community in out-of-town developments. "The Americans rejected the out-of-town model 20 years ago. For a generation, the aim was to (boost profits by moving) to the edge of town where the freeways were," he says. "Then they realised that there was actually a (much larger potential) fan base on their doorstep (than they thought), and they just needed to engage with it. And they realised you can market your heritage. In Chicago, the authorities have recognised that if (the Cubs baseball team were to abandon) Wrigley Field and leave that part of Chicago like every other big business had, then there would be nothing left. If you were going to regenerate that part of Chicago, stage one would be to keep the Cubs there. The authorities need the team to stay and get involved in the wider regeneration."

Although still a work in progress, one UK club that Boyle thinks does have the right approach to relocation is unheralded Brentford FC, which is partly community-owned. "They began thinking: 'Who can we put in this (new) stadium who would benefit us and be good for others?' So they looked at the primary care trust and asked them: 'Why don't you put your suite of new offices and surgery in the North Stand?' They approached the council and said: 'Could we get some European funding for business incubation units and could we put them under the South Stand?'"

However, realistically, does Boyle ever envisage a day when a Premier League giant such as Liverpool or Manchester United is majority-owned by their supporters' trusts? "That's the $640 million question," says Boyle. "In order to be the new president of (member-owned) Barcelona, you have to get 3,000 signatures, then there's a campaign and the members choose who they want. At the moment, if you want to take over Manchester United, you need £1.2 billion."

But Boyle says it is vital to keep things in context. "Football clubs are not as important as schools, as hospitals. Yet there are clubs that turn a set of streets and houses into a community, that get imbued with a sense of being greater than the physical activities which take place within them," he says. "I struggle to see anything that has a greater power to embody that sense of community than a football club."

CV highlights

1999: Elected vice-chair of the Football Supporters' Association
2000: Joins Supporters Direct as development worker, later becoming deputy chief executive
2008: Becomes chief executive
2009: Appointed to the Co-operative Business Development Panel and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport Inquiry into Betting Integrity.