Opinion: Real-life Fantasy Football - it's what the Internet was made for

We've all played Football Manager or Championship Manager and wished we could actually be doing it for real. After all, every fan knows better how to get results than the manager, players and those with the millions of pounds to fund the whole thing, don't they?

Well, an Internet experiment could now reveal whether that really is the case. We've written before about website MyFootballClub, set up to give supporters the chance to own their own club. Each put in £35 and £700,000 was raised to buy an FC somewhere in the UK.

They obviously decided a bid for Arsenal or Manchester United was foolish and so have ended up pumping the cash into Ebbsfleet United who play in the Blue Square Premier League. Each fan has an equal share and all will get to vote on transfers as well as player selection and all major decisions using the website.

The site actually owns a 51% controlling stake, but does have the option to buy the club outright in the future. Surely this kind of techno-cooperative is just what we should be encouraging.

Using the Internet for a common good like pushing a lowly team into the dizzy heights of the footballing greats is really just a bit of fun, but for £35, it's better value for money than Second Life or World of Warcraft. This is real reality gaming, not that silly virtual character nonsense.

Since the website's launch in April, 50,000 members have signed up, with 20,000 of those paying the registration fee. It's an annual amount so anyone can join at any time. And I for one may well sign up. It's not exactly a stake in my beloved Tottenham but it's a stake in grassroots football which is possibly far more important.

And technology-wise it's far better than sitting in front of my PC selecting my squad in FM2008 and watching them lift a pixel-based trophy. This is a clear example of the Internet bringing communities together and I wonder how long it will be before a couple more clubs are snapped up by canny web-based owners.

I do feel sorry for the manager tho. Not only will he have to put up with one dreaded "chairman's vote of confidence", he'll have 50,000 or more of them to contend with!

Via BBC

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