Who would actually own it?
The fund can raise money. It cannot own anything. A stake in a football club has to be held by something with a legal existence, run by rules its members can enforce. This page is the plan for that, and it is only a plan: nothing described here has been formed.
Two bodies, two jobs
The fund and the society are deliberately different things. Keeping them apart is part of the design, not a loose end.
| The fund | The society | |
|---|---|---|
| Who takes part | Anyone who signs the declaration | Supporters who choose to join |
| What you give | A signature, and later, locked bitcoin | A small share and a fee each season |
| Who you are | A wallet address. Nobody is asked for a name | A named person, one membership each |
| What it does | Counts commitments, and pays for a purchase only if enough people back it | Holds the stake and votes the club's shares as its members decide |
| What it holds | Nothing. There is no pot | The stake, if one is ever bought |
The route from here
Roughly in order. Nothing on this list has a date, because nobody can honestly give one. Where each step stands today is in one list, on how it works.
| The declaration, the register, and locks that Bitcoin itself enforces |
| A solicitor reads all of this, including the questions at the bottom of this page, before the movement asks the public for money |
| Enough supporters actually commit money for the number to be taken seriously |
| An owner who is willing to sell a stake to a body like this |
| The society is formed and opens for members, but only once a purchase is real |
| A purchase is proposed, supporters back it with their own locked money, and the society holds the stake |
The society comes late on purpose. Forming a legal body early would tie us to obligations before there is anything for it to hold. The hard part was never filling in a form. It is that nobody has to sell us anything.
What kind of body
We expect it to be a community benefit society, a legal form that supporters' trusts in Britain commonly use. Three things about it matter to us:
Its rules give every member a single vote, whatever they put in. A wealthier supporter is not a more important one.
Its rules must keep what it owns for the benefit of its community. Nothing can be paid out to members as profit. That is the legal form of "money in, glory out", and it is the reason the rule can be written in a way no later vote removes.
A society keeps a register of its members and is registered with a regulator in Britain. That is why joining it means giving a name, which the fund never asks for.
We are not lawyers. This is the shape we are aiming for, and a solicitor decides whether it works.
How you would join
It buys the vote and nothing else. It earns no return, and it is not the money you commit through the fund. Put your name to it and you get a vote.
Membership lapses if you stop paying, so the vote belongs to people still paying attention. The fee is meant to cover the society's own running costs, such as keeping its register. It is kept apart from committed bitcoin and does not go towards a purchase.
A low price does not stop one person casting fifty votes. The check does. Exactly how it is done without the fund learning anything is not worked out.
These amounts are the current intention, not a promise, and they are in pounds because the society would be a British body. Whether and how supporters outside Britain can join is a question for the solicitor.
Why joining and committing are separate
It would be tidier to say you must have locked bitcoin to be a member. We decided against it, for a reason that cannot be engineered around. A lock expires on a date, so the only way for the society to confirm someone is still locked would be to connect their name to their bitcoin address. That would end the anonymity the fund exists to keep.
The split also gives each side a check on the other:
No money is spent without their commitments. Nobody steers the club through the fund.
The society votes the club's shares. It cannot reach into anyone's wallet.
If the society went wrong, nobody has to back its next purchase, and every lock still goes home on its date.
It also costs something, and we would rather say so. The two groups will not be the same people: someone can lock a great deal and never join, or join and never lock. And a society that is cheap to join could in principle be taken over by a bloc of people who put nothing into the stake. Named members, one membership each and the asset lock (a captured society still cannot pay anything out) make that harder. They do not make it impossible, and it is on the list for the solicitor.
A tension with the declaration
The declaration says nobody has to say who they are and that no database of supporters will be built. It also says members get a say. Put next to this plan, that needs spelling out.
The fund will never ask for your name and will never keep a database of supporters. The society has to keep a register of its own members, and a say in directing the club comes through that register, so using it means giving your name to the society, never to the fund. Anyone who has signed the declaration can choose to join. Nobody has to.
Whether that squares with the declaration's exact wording is a question for the solicitor. If it does not, we will publish a second version of the declaration with the reason and ask signers whether they want to sign it. That is the process the declaration itself sets out.
Not settled
| The exact share price and the season fee | Open |
| Whether a society can legally be bound to vote the club's shares as its members decide | Needs a solicitor |
| Whether supporters outside Britain can join, and how | Needs a solicitor |
| How one-membership-per-person is checked without the fund learning anything | Open |
| Whether the declaration needs a second version | Needs a solicitor |
| What the society is called. "The Kop Fund" names the movement and its funding mechanism, not the society | No name yet |
None of these affects money committed through the fund. Whatever happens to the society, a lock still goes home on the date its owner chose. All of them affect whether this ever achieves anything. The wider list is on how it works, and the risks are on the risks page.