As I was reading about Seattle's Membership Association and how you can have a vote on what goes on in the club for $125 a year, it got me thinking. Instead of pooling money together to buy the club like Share Liverpool FC, it would be more effective to pool money to buy players.
If you think about it, £20-30mil wouldn't be that hard to raise worldwide. It would have to be very organized with some kind of board that selects maybe 5 players that the group would like the club to buy and then people could donate if they agreed with those choices. Once enough money is raised, the group could then go to the club and say, "Okay we have £25mil available to you if you'll go after any of these 5 targets in the summer with the understanding that if they're sold in the future, the money comes back to the group." Then, the club can either take it or maybe make a suggestion about someone they would like to buy that's not on the list and that suggestion could go back to the members for a vote on whether to allocate the funds for it.
People are really hard on owners these days for not shelling out big bucks of their own money for major signings. I don't really blame owners for not wanting to continue to invest in a business year after year. Eventually the business, the club, needs to support itself on some level and show a return. There's situations such as Liverpool where the club is doing okay, but really needs additional funds to remain competitive in the Premier League and the owners really don't have the cash. I would be very surprised if Hicks or Gillette have more than a few million sitting in a bank at any given time. Their wealth is the American way of buying on credit then buying with credit from liens on assets that aren't even paid off.
So why not have the fans put a little control into their own hands? I, for one, would definitely throw $100 bucks at a website if they were trying to go after players like Barry, Bentley or Villa. Hell, maybe they could get a t-shirt even. "I helped buy David Villa and all I got was this lousy shirt...oh and a league title as well."