OWNAFC is an app that lets fans own a non-league club for £49 but critics call it ‘absurd and embarrassing’
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ONE non-league team is on the verge of being taken over by a £49 app that allows users based around the world to make key decisions at the club.
But is this a good thing for the lower level game?
One leading advocate for the non-league game calls it "absurd and embarrassing".
OWNAFC is the brainchild of Stuart Harvey, an ambitious businessman from Wigan who wants to change the way football clubs are run.
For the price of £49, he's offering subscribers the opportunity to orchestrate team affairs - it's a case of popular computer game Football Manager becoming a real thing.
Once you make your payment, you're a shareholder and owner - voting on everything from hiring and firing staff to planning training sessions.
Harvey's aim is to build a self-sustainable football club that'll be able to move through the leagues debt-free.
Ownership is limited to 10,000 shares, while OWNAs will maintain a 51% control of the club.
Harvey is in talks with three non-league clubs, but is bound by a non-disclosure agreement to reveal who.
Rumours circulated online speculating that Northern Premier League side Hednesford Town were on the verge of being OWNAFC's first guinea pig.
However, today they distanced themselves from a deal, confirming on Twitter the takeover was off.
Harvey, 39, told SunSport: "We want to take football back to its roots and bring the club and the community together.
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"A lot of non-league clubs are trying to raise capital from the same sponsors, the same small community, and they're getting crowds of 200-300... it's not a way to run a football club."
But many believe his invention will destroy much of what is good about non-league football.
Alex Narey, editor of The Non-League Paper, predicts the project will end in tears.
He said: "Too many people underestimate what these football clubs mean to their communities.
"This will alienate that communal spirit. It will alienate the club in the non-league community.
"Just wait until things unravel; it will become a laughing stock."
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Yet Harvey is confident that his OWNAFC app will end years of mismanagement at non-league level.
He claims to have done seven years of research to determine where football owners go wrong.
Harvey said: "We've seen what's gone on at Coventry, Blackpool and Mike Ashley at Newcastle.
"These are irrational, elitist owners who are creating clubs to be a revenue stream for an already established business.
"We believe we can bring a reserve figure of 10,000 new fans to a football club.
"We sell them the concept for £49, which includes licence fees to use the technology and a shareholding within the football club.
"And we're really opening up the football club to a group of like-minded people, with no restrictions, across the globe from China to Australia.
"There's 3,500 people signed up to this and we're getting even more people subscribing."
Harvey, who hopes the OWNAFC app will be successful enough to run several teams across Europe, believes this is what the fans want.
"In my opinion the chairman's role is now outdated," he told us.
"I believe a community of like-minded football people can make a rational and calculated decision better than a chairman.
"The OWNAs are making the final decision - they are replacing the chairman.
"All we are doing is applying common sense, simple mathematics and statistics into running a football club."
OWNAFC have been slammed on social media by non-league fans who have questioned whether offering such a universal approach takes the club away from the fans.
Harvey argued: "Do fans want their team to bob along or nearly get relegated? Or do they have dreams and ambitions?
"When we spoke to people, we realised they wanted more fans in the ground, they want to be successful.
";If they want that, they have to do something different than what they are doing.
"We believe we are giving people their football club back, allowing them to become a shareholder and dictate how it's run.
"There will be a few fans who will be cynical, but would you rather watch football with 500 people or 2000 people, where there's a positive mood around the football club?"
But purists of the non-league game aren't convinced. Narey believes the idea is completely non-sensical.
"I’m all for fans and supporters having their voices heard but I see no sense in this," Narey said.
"Hednesford Town, or any football club, is not a plaything and people should not be able to make such rash decisions simply because they have forked out £49 to become a shareholder.
"In 2008, MyFootballClub took over Ebbsfleet United and the immediate growth was positive.
"But the honeymoon period did not last and when the renewals dwindled the club faced going under before being taken over again.
“That will happen with OWNAFC should the move go ahead.
"Stuart Harvey argues one of the reasons for MyFootballClub not working out at Ebbsfleet was because it was “ahead of its time”, and that smart technology will make this project more appealing.
"But therein lies the problem; this will give people who are simply not qualified the opportunity to make decisions.
"We are talking about signing players and hiring and firing people. People’s careers - their futures, their reputations - going to a public vote! It’s absurd and embarrassing.
"Managers, at this level, live and work on a knife edge. They need protection. They don’t need their jobs being done for them by some bloke on an app, potentially thousands of miles away.
"Negotiations on contracts, financial planning, planning training sessions? Do me a favour. There is nothing sensible about this. It’s nothing but fanciful!
"Hednesford pull in gates of around 350-400. They are a famous non-league club with great heritage.
"In terms of support they will have a wider network, but Harvey says he needs at least 2,500 to make this work (and anything up to a cap of 10,000 members).
"So that will be a huge majority of shareholders who are not fans, who know little about the club, know nothing about the non-league landscape, making decisions and potential over-ruling those who know the club inside out: the real fans.
"And what about those fans who do buy into the idea? Suddenly they are playing with their emotions.
"Those chats you would have over a beer in the bar afterwards about who should play and who shouldn’t - it will create civil war within the club.
"People who sit next to each other in the stand will be at loggerheads over their decision-making.
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"Too many people underestimate what these football clubs mean to their communities.
"Years and years of hard-working volunteers who have given their lives to the club, and some upstart comes along and starts pressing the buttons on their behalf.
"This will alienate that communal spirit. It will alienate the club in the non-league community.
"Just wait until things unravel; it will become a laughing stock.
"There are some terrible examples of clubs being run into the ground in non-league football by owners who are not fit to be involved.
"But giving the fans - any fans - the opportunity to run a club in this way is not the answer.
“Get this idea in the bin. And keep it there."