Intellectually, we all know that football is a business for many owners. I've listened to interviews where football chairmen have admitted that the club doesn't have fans but in reality has customers. For many owners of clubs football is nothing but a special sort of moving spreadsheet showing profits in one column and loses in the other.
Despite all this though I still like to think that the opinions and voices of the supporters matter. In some important intangible way it is really the fan's club not the multi-millionaire owners.
This is why the news that Hull City owner Assem Allam has gone to the FA seeking a name change is so interesting. Not for the commercial questions but for the issue of whether the officials that run the beautiful game in this nation accept that the opinions of fans matter that it is their clubs.
Should the FA choose to allow Allam to change the name of his team against the wishes of many of the fans then an important watershed will have been reached. Football will have truly become a business instead of a sport. Pounds and pence will have conquered passion.
Source: DSG
