This article is contributed by Tarik Ajanović:
One of the biggest Croatian clubs, HNK Hajduk Split, has celebrated its centennial this year with a goalless friendly against FC Barcelona. Although the squads on the pitch belonged to different classes in European football, the same cannot be said for the fans of the home team who are considered to be one of the best firms around and are not behind their opponents on the terraces at Camp Nou. However, it seems that the club organization could be similar between the two clubs as well very soon.
This article is contributed by Tarik Ajanović:
One of the biggest Croatian clubs, HNK Hajduk Split, has celebrated its centennial this year with a goalless friendly against FC Barcelona. Although the squads on the pitch belonged to different classes in European football, the same cannot be said for the fans of the home team who are considered to be one of the best firms around and are not behind their opponents on the terraces at Camp Nou. However, it seems that the club organization could be similar between the two clubs as well very soon.
The fans of Hajduk, gathered around both the ultra supporter-firm “Torcida Split“ and “regular“ citizens have managed to introduce a new scheme of football governance only present at some Spanish clubs such as FC Barcelona. HNK Hajduk Split is registered as a company with share capital for several years now with the city administration of Split holding 56,10% of the total shares. The newly-registered association of citizens “Naš Hajduk“ (Croatian for “Our Hajduk“) will have an opportunity to elect 7 out of 9 members of the supervisory board of Hajduk Split.
All citizens can become members of the “Naš Hajduk“ association by paying the annual membership fee of 100 kn (cca. £11.50) and filling out the appropriate forms. All membership fees are directly deposited into the accounts of their football club and it is a way of financially helping the club as well. So far, around 10 000 citizens have already became members of the association.
How will it work in practice? The City of Split has already agreed to transfer their voting rights for the supervision board of Hajduk Split to the association. By voting for the members, the fans will ensure that their club will be managed in the best possible way since they will have an option to stop any harmful decisions or initiate the much-needed reforms within the club. The other two members of the supervisory board will be elected by other shareholders.
The city of Split has already posted a job description for interested candidates. The candidates will need, amongst other things, to hold at least a bachelor university degree, have five years of relevant working experience and not have a court conviction. The members of the association will vote on the candidates after they present themselves and their plans for the future of the club. Several well-known persons have already applied with some university professors and prominent citizens in contention.
The association “Naš Hajduk“ will see this as a memorable achievement of all Hajduk’s fans after several fan clashes with the club board in the previous years where they have requested more involvement in the decisions within the club. The supervisory board the association will promote buying shares amongst the fans as well what will ensure both the future of the club and the fans’ control of it.
The elections are scheduled to be held sometimes next month with the final results being published in November so it will be interesting to see how this is going to turn out.