Ebbsfleet United: Ghosts in the Machine

A Promise Postponed

Just five weeks after more than twenty-nine thousand people bought a football club, they are being asked if they really want to control it. The premise of MyFootballClub’s purchase of Ebbsfleet United was radical and simple: members would pick the team. Now, with a trip to Wembley for the FA Trophy Final secured and an outside chance of the Conference play-offs, the website’s management appears to be getting cold feet.

Manager Liam Daish, in an email to all members, has expressed his concern. He argues that with two games a week and a spate of injuries, this is a “very tricky time to introduce our new system.” The original plan was for member-led team selection to begin by the end of March, but this has been delayed. Daish’s message suggests deferring the entire process until pre-season in July, a significant retreat from the project’s central marketing pitch. He believes changing the system now could “affect mindsets and unsettle things” as players compete for their Wembley places.

This hesitation from the manager, who has publicly defended the team-picking concept in countless interviews since November 2007, has exposed deep fissures in the project. The very feature that sold thousands of memberships is now being framed as a potential liability at a critical moment in the season.

The Illusion of Control

The issue has been put to a vote, but the ballot itself has become a point of contention. Members are being asked to choose from five options regarding their view on team selection, but the phrasing has raised eyebrows. The first option, “I want to pick the team but I don’t want the manager to make any changes to the members’ selection,” uses the word “but,” which some on the MyFC forum see as a pejorative framing designed to discourage that choice. The subsequent options, which grant the manager increasing levels of flexibility, do not use such language.

It feeds a growing suspicion that the membership is only given a say on matters that suit the agenda of the site’s organisers. Communication has reportedly been poor, with accusations and counter-accusations now a common feature on the club’s forum. This is not the first time democracy has felt guided; members were presented with only one club to purchase, Ebbsfleet, and were effectively instructed to vote for it.

The entire enterprise feels fragile. Of the 29,000 members, only a little over 2,000 have signed up for longer than a single year. With some long-term members already stating they will not renew their subscriptions, the financial model that brought stability to the club looks precarious. Before the takeover, Daish was facing the prospect of cutting his playing budget. Instead, member funds have paid for new footballs, portable goals, and an overnight hotel stay for an away trip to Burton on the road to Wembley. After one match, a female fan even dropped a red toothbrush into the manager's pint of Guinness for luck.

The goodwill generated by such moments is now at risk.

An Unsettled Future

Daish’s email is a masterful piece of diplomacy, thanking the members for their financial support while simultaneously asking them to surrender the power they were promised. He praises the “different class” away support and the impact of new equipment, noting the players reacted “like it was Christmas Day.” Yet he is now the one asking for control to remain with him, stating his opinion that he, and the players he is drilling, are “still in the hunt for the play-offs.”

It is difficult to feel much sympathy for any of the parties involved. Members signed up for a real-life game of Championship Manager, only to find the game postponed indefinitely. Their complaints, however, are not necessarily rooted in the best interests of the football club itself, but in the fulfilment of their purchase. Daish, for his part, has backed the project publicly for months. To turn around now and suggest it is unworkable seems late in the day. If these were his true feelings, it is reasonable to assume he held them six months ago.

The project was sold on a promise that now looks set to be broken. With a Wembley final against Torquay United on 10 May, the club is on the brink of its greatest achievement. But behind the scenes, the wheels are beginning to wobble.