Community based club succeeds in A-League bid

17 December 2018

The BCCM is delighted with the A-League’s announcement that a new club from in Sydney’s South-West will be joining the A-League in the 2020/21 season. In early 2018 the BCCM contacted the United for Macarthur group to offer support for forming a club that was community-owned.

Following a meeting with the leadership team and support from the BCCM and BCCM Advisers, we are pleased to see that the bid has been successful.

“Arguably fans are the most important stakeholders in sport. Fans should not be treated as cash cows through the turnstile. They have a fundamental role to play in the ongoing sustainability of the club. This is borne out by the fact that some of the world’s most successful teams are co-operatively owned by their fans,” said BCCM CEO Melina Morrison.

“Fan ownership of sporting clubs is a globally popular model, with many of the best-known sporting organisations in the world operating under the co-operative model. These clubs include FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, and the Greenbay Packers. A large number of soccer and rugby clubs in the UK are also fan-owned. In Australia, the North Queensland Cowboys are a community club, encouraging ongoing engagement with their membership base.”

The BCCM is working with leaders from across sporting codes to drive engagement with fan-ownership models and is preparing a study tour of member-owned clubs in Europe for 2019. If you are interested in participating in the tour, please email BCCM (info@bccm.coop).

The BCCM team wishes the Macarthur South-West Sydney club the best of luck for their foray into the A-League!

Watch BCCM panel discussion about community-owned sport with sports journalists Tracey Holmes (ABC), Warwick Hadfield (ABC) and Craig Foster (SBS)