I was back in Liverpool at the weekend to watch the Cup Final with the Blue half of my family.  Sadly the Chelsea Blue triumphed over the Everton Blue.  There were a few sore heads on Sunday morning.

When I do a talk or run a workshop, I introduce myself by talking about my journey from activist to entrepreneur.

My Hillsborough story is far less dramatic than that of thousands of other people who were affected by what happened twenty years ago.  But, like so many people, what happened that day has stayed with me ever since, and, probably more than any other event in my life, has shaped me for good and for bad.

2 Could more people have been saved if the response to the disaster had been better co-ordinated?

3 Who removed two CCTV video tapes from the locked control room at Hillsborough on the night of the disaster?

4 Why was nobody identified to have removed them, and what investigation was mounted?

5 Which South Yorkshire police officers worked in the unit that vetted police statements before they went to Taylor and the inquest?

6 Who gave the orders for them to do so and what was the stated intention of those orders?

7 Are the documents lodged by order of the government in the House of Lords library a complete archive of South Yorkshire police's Hillsborough documents?

8 What was Det Supt Stanley Beechey, a former head of the West Midlands serious crime squad, doing on the Hillsborough investigation while he had been placed on "non-operational duties"?

As Margaret Aspinall, whose son, James, died at Hillsborough, said in David Conn's article, "I don't like to use the word justice.  I prefer to say that we want the full truth, and accountability. Even now, it would make a difference, alleviate some of the hurt and betrayal we have suffered for 20 years."

I sometimes wonder what journalists get paid for.  I know football is all about opinions but the shallow analysis of the Benitez-Ferguson saga does make me despair a little.  The story seems to be:  Benitez has a go at Ferguson.  Liverpool draw a match.  United win a match.  Therefore Benitez lost and Ferguson won.  I think it's a bit more complex than that.

It's up to you to decide whether you think Rafa lost it, or whether this was a brilliant tactical move to out-manoeuvre the grand master of mind games.  

If you ran a bank, and had loaned a load of money to a football club, who then couldn't pay it back, what would you do?  

Obviously if you re-possess a house, you can usually find someone else who's in the market for buying a house.  But selling on a stadium – that would challenge the most florally-linguistic estate agent.  

A last minute rush of blood to the head, undone by a crafty right-winger. What was David Moores thinking when he had a last-minute change of heart and decided to sell to Waldorf and Statler instead of DIC? Surely self-styled Mr Liverpool wasn’t swayed by the extra millions coming his way?

Whatever his motivation, his poor decision making has proved costly for Liverpool. Hicks cares about Hicks, full stop. Watching him try to sing along to You’ll Never Walk Alone last night was a painful reminder that this man has no feel for the club.

The farce at Liverpool is a reminder that ownership matters in business. But how much does it matter in social business? In the olden days it was simple, social enterprise was proudly not-for-profit. Or was it? Co-ops have always offered dividends, which sounds a lot like profit sharing to me (and no bad thing).

And things have become more hazy still with the introduction of the CIC Limited by Shares. Suddenly you can make a pretty decent profit out of owning a social business. Not-for-profit has become not-for-an-over-the-top profit.

Does that matter? On one level I think it does, because when an absolute (not-for-profit) becomes more relative (not as much profit as the other guys) there is scope for continued pushing of the boundaries, and social enterprise could lose something quite important. You only have to look at ownership of football clubs (beginning with Tottenham’s holding company ruse in the 1980’s) to see that you can’t always anticipate the long-term impact of decisions around profit-making in business. Football clubs were once not-for-profit too remember.

But on balance, I’m keen on making it easier for people to make some money out of social business. I’m in the social change business, and I’m clear that to stand any chance of making the world a better place, we need to find ways to enable most of us to do good things most of the time. That’s as true in business as anywhere else. Some of us, some of the time, are motivated purely by a moral/social incentive. And long may that continue. But most of us need a financial incentive a lot of the time too. So if we can make it easier to set up businesses which are proudly social, but also allow for a fair amount of profit to be taken out too, then I think that is a good thing.

Gary Hirshberg, CE-Yo of Stonyfield Farm has something interesting to say on this topic in his new book:

“As George Bernard Shaw once said, “Virtue is insufficient temptation.” Our planet will not be saved by preaching principles and exerting moral suasion. After more than three decades spent working in the environmental movement, I am convinced that economic self-interest – whether it is achieved by saving, earning, or both – is the most powerful, if not the only, force capable of bringing about the future we need in time to make a difference to the well-being of Mother Earth.”

I still think we’ll beat Chelsea in the second leg by the way.

A very exciting plan to take over Liverpool Football Club will be launched today.

The model they’re looking at is a co-operative one, based on the kind of structure that a number of clubs in Germany and Spain – most notably Barcelona – have adopted.

I’ve blogged a number of times before about ownership in football and I really hope that this initiative gathers a head of steam. It seems to have good people behind it – Rogan Taylor has been a voice of reason for many years – and I for one would jump at the chance to invest in Liverpool.

Something has to change. David Conn outlined the situation very well in yesterday’s Guardian. My heart sank when I saw a banner in the Kop at the Aston Villa game pleading with Dubai International Capital to rescue the club from its current owners grasp.

Share Liverpool FC could offer us a real chance to put ownership of football clubs back into the hands of fans – and for football to be run once again for the social benefit of the many, not the financial gain of the few.

Dear Brian,

Sometimes you don’t get what you want. Instead you get what you need. I was disappointed that England didn’t qualify for the European Championships, but there was also part of me that was pleased as it might give your organisation a long overdue kick up the backside.

If you’ve read my blog before, you’ll know that I’ve written a number of times about the state of English football, so I won’t recycle old arguments here. But let me tell you about my ten year old nephew. He lives in Liverpool, your home town and mine, a city which has produced more than its fair share of great footballers over the years. He’s mad about football and by my reckoning a pretty good player too. He’s been playing for a local under 10’s team for a while now.

I saw him on Sunday and asked him how he’d got on the day before. He told me he’d stopped playing for the team because, in his words “I’m not learning anything anymore.” The guy who coaches the team coaches four other age groups too, so doesn’t have much time for them. And in line with your guidelines, (unlike just about any other decent footballing nation) 10 year olds play on full-size pitches. Given that their legs are too short to run up and down the pitch for 90 minutes, they learn to aimlessly hoof it up the pitch. Just like your lads did last Wednesday. Can you see a pattern emerging?

My nephew told me he’s going to try another sport now. Which in lots of ways is great, but what a wasted opportunity. I hope your root and branch review really does get back to the grassroots. Your organisation could be the most dynamic, democratic organisation going. Instead it’s stuffy, stuck in the past and carelessly selling the soul of football to the persuasive moneymen at the top of the game.

May I suggest a bit of reading for you? Try David Conn’s excellent book, The Beautiful Game – to give you a real insight into where you’re going wrong. And have a read of Simon Caulkin’s column in this weekend’s Observer – in which he highlights how you share poor management systems with plenty of other organisations, including HMRC and the NHS. He quotes systems thinker Russell Ackoff:

“Problems in organisations are almost always the product of interactions of parts, never the action of a single part. Treating a single part destabilises the whole and demands more fruitless management intervention; management becomes a consumer of energy, rather than a creator.”

So if you really believe you’re sorting things out by getting rid of one manager and bringing in another, please think again, and think of my nephew.

Yours in hope,

Rob

I heard on the news this morning that fans website MyFootballClub has agreed to take over Blue Square Premier Club Ebbsfleet United.

20,000 members have each paid £35 in order to provide the £700,000 needed to take over the club. I don’t know the detail, but I’m pretty sure that the website is run as a Supporters Trust, with a not-for-profit (Industrial and Provident Society) structure.

I’ve blogged a few times before about football and its gradual takeover by people interested in nothing more than making money. Football clubs are too important to local communities to allow that to happen, and it’s great to see a number of Supporters Trusts getting their act together and either getting a seat on the Board, or in some cases taking over the club. When Leeds United’s troubles started a few years back I got involved (in a vaguely uncomfortable way as I’m a Liverpool supporter) in helping to set up Leeds United Supporters Trust , which has had an important role to play in challenging times for the club.

As the great man Bill Shankly once said

Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.

In terms of the long term health of a football club, I’d say ownership matters that much too.