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Football today has chief commercial officers.
It has marketing directors.
It has brand strategists, digital engagement teams and global sponsorship departments all chasing the same thing.
Revenue.
But somehow the one role football has never bothered to create is the one responsible for the people who built the entire sport in the first place.
Supporters.
For a game that constantly tells the world that football belongs to the fans, it’s remarkable that most clubs still have no one sitting in the boardroom whose job is to represent them.
And that missing seat explains a lot about the modern game.
Football’s Leadership Problem
This isn’t just a supporter rant.
It has already been identified at the highest level.
The Independent Review of Football Governance led by Tracey Crouch concluded that English football had systematically failed to involve supporters in meaningful decision-making.
Systematically failed.
Ticket prices go up.
Kick-off times move for television.
Club identities change.
Stadiums relocate.
And the people who built the club usually find out after the decision has already been made.
Then the club releases a statement saying it values supporter feedback.
That isn’t governance.
That’s theatre.
The Moment Football Got Caught Out
If anyone needed proof that football leadership doesn’t understand supporters, we saw it in 2021.
When the European Super League announcement was revealed, the reaction from supporters was immediate.
Outrage.
Protests.
Political intervention.
Within forty-eight hours the entire project collapsed.
Twelve of the richest clubs in world football had spent months planning a competition supporters rejected instantly.
Which tells you something remarkable.
The most powerful executives in football had absolutely no idea how fans would react.
Not because supporters are unpredictable.
But because nobody in those boardrooms was responsible for understanding them.
Football Pretends To Listen
Clubs will say they already involve supporters.
They point to fan advisory boards.
Supporter liaison officers.
Fan forums.
But the reality is uncomfortable.
Most of those structures are window dressing.
The Football Supporters’ Association has repeatedly pointed out that many supporter engagement structures have:
• no voting power
• no authority
• no influence over real decisions
Supporter liaison officers often sit inside marketing departments.
They do good work.
But they’re not decision makers.
They’re not in the room when ticket prices rise.
They’re not there when stadium moves are planned.
Football has created the appearance of listening without ever sharing power.
When Football Was Still Human
When I was about twelve years old me and a few mates went down to watch Morecambe FC.
We didn’t have the money to get in.
So we stood outside the ground peering through the fence trying to see the match.
One of the club’s board members spotted us.
Instead of telling us to clear off, he opened the gate and let us in.
A couple of times he even bought us a pie.
He said something I’ve never forgotten.
“Don’t worry lads, football is for everyone.”
That moment says more about what football used to be than any modern marketing campaign ever could.
Clubs were part of their communities.
Kids were welcomed.
Fans mattered.
Somewhere along the way football stopped opening the gate for kids outside the ground.
Now it sends them a pricing structure.
The Ownership Model That Broke The Game
Across Europe things work differently.
Germany’s 50+1 rule ensures supporters retain majority control of their clubs.
Supporters hold the controlling stake.
It’s not perfect, but it protects something modern football increasingly struggles to maintain.
Accountability.
England went the other way.
Football became a playground for billionaires.
Owners pump money into losses.
Transfer fees circulate around the top clubs.
Millions are spent on squad players who barely play.
Meanwhile lower-league clubs operate on budgets that wouldn’t cover a substitute’s wages at the top level.
Sometimes the talent gap isn’t even that big.
The financial gap is.
That system makes genuine supporter ownership almost impossible.
The Growing Disconnect
Something else has happened along the way.
Supporters are losing their emotional connection with the game.
Ticket prices rise.
Kick-off times change for television.
Clubs talk about global audiences while local supporters feel pushed aside.
Even the relationship between players and supporters has changed.
Squads turn over constantly.
Players come and go within seasons.
The bond between club, player and fan has weakened.
And executives underestimate how dangerous that is.
Because football’s entire economy is built on loyalty.
Lose that and everything else eventually follows.
Stadiums And The Illusion Of Progress
Modern stadiums look impressive.
But they come with consequences.
The move by West Ham United from Upton Park still divides supporters.
Tottenham Hotspur built one of the most impressive stadiums in the world, yet debates about ticket pricing continue.
Now Everton is moving to Bramley-Moore Dock.
The stadium will be spectacular.
At first everyone will love it.
But supporters have seen this story before.
The novelty fades.
The financial machine starts running.
And slowly the working-class fans who built the club get squeezed out.
The Role Football Forgot
Football has spent thirty years professionalising revenue.
But it has never professionalised the relationship with supporters.
That’s why clubs need something the sport has never created.
A Chief Supporter Officer.
A senior executive whose job is simple:
Protect the relationship between the club and its supporters.
Not buried inside marketing.
Not a token liaison role.
A real boardroom position responsible for supporter governance, fan communication, community connection and protecting the long-term relationship between club and supporters.
In most serious industries, relationships with key stakeholders are managed at executive level.
Football somehow forgot that supporters are its most important stakeholders.
The Real Test
Football constantly says the game belongs to the fans.
It appears in marketing campaigns.
It’s printed on club slogans.
It’s repeated in interviews.
But slogans are easy.
Governance is harder.
If football truly believes the game belongs to supporters, the answer is simple.
Put one of them in the boardroom.
Because football has spent the last thirty years building departments for revenue.
Maybe it’s time the sport built one to protect the people who built the game.
Supporters.
And the clubs that understand that first will be the ones supporters still trust in fifty years.