A lower- football club is a business with one strange feature.
Its customers will not switch to a competitor, even after a bad season.
That encourages owners to raise ticket prices year after year.
It also covers up poor management for a very long time.
Most small clubs lose money on and recover it by selling one player.
That model works until two bad windows arrive together.
Several English clubs have entered in exactly this way.
Supporter is now common in Germany and growing elsewhere.
Members elect the board and block decisions such as selling the ground.
Such clubs rarely win the biggest trophies.
They also rarely disappear, which supporters value more than they admit.
A club is not only a company; it is the fixed point in a town's week.
Regulators are slowly beginning to write that into law.