Word: labours
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...season promises elation for some and frustration for others. Mindful of the fact that the neck-and-neck race for the English Premier League title between Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal will generate greater passion than the May 6 general-election contest pitting the Conservative front-runners against the Labour incumbents and smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats, the politicians are making their own play for the fans' attention: the ruling Labour Party, in its election manifesto published April 12, has promised to develop policy proposals that would enable "registered Supporters Trusts" to buy shares of the teams they back...
...Just as Britain's voters look set to unseat Labour in part as punishment for the debt-ridden state of the economy, soccer supporters' patience for massive borrowing by football clubs - and the owners behind it - has expired. Asked in a March YouGov poll whether they felt their club would be in better hands if it was owned cooperatively, 56% of fans expressing an opinion believed it would...
...Labour hopes that its proposals, which could also see fans offered right of first refusal to buy their club in the event that it was put up for sale, could coax many football fans to turn out for the party come election day. "There's the potential for [the plan] to be very popular in an electoral sense," says Duncan Drasdo, chief executive of the Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST), which advocates for fans having an ownership stake in the club. A large number of United's 3.8 million adult fans in the U.K. live in marginal constituencies, Drasdo says...
...Were Labour to win next month - the opposition Conservatives, who've dismissed the offer of ownership stakes as a "gimmick," are currently ahead in the polls - implementing its proposals could still prove tricky. While the government is taking legal advice on how the sale of shares to supporters might be enforced, it's hard to imagine club owners would allow any such reform to pass unchallenged.(Read "Can Fans Buy Their Team...
...revised fundraising effort "won't be going anywhere at the moment," admits James McKenna, secretary of Liverpool supporters' group the Spirit of Shankly. If the fans' rebellion fails to build momentum before the soccer season draws to a close next month, however, the same may be true for Labour's prospects...