Athletic Club Bilbao: "Our member base is limited by the capacity of our stadium" (J. Berasategi)

"Compared to FC Bayern Munich, Sport Lisboa e Benfica, or Real Madrid CF, Athletic Club 'only' has 45,000 members. Why? Because the statutes of our club state that every member is also a season-ticket holder. Therefore, our member base is limited by the capacity of our stadium (San Mamés, 53,332 seats)," stated Jon Berasategi, the general manager of Athletic Club (LaLiga Santander), in his presentation titled "Success based on values and deep-rooted governance structure" in Split (CRO) on 10/04/2018.

The ECA is organising, in partnership with HNK Hajduk Split (Prva HNL, CRO), one of its member clubs, a conference on the structure of football clubs owned by their supporters, titled "'Socio' Membership Structure: From Strategy to Implementation, Management, and Practice", in Split (CRO) on Tuesday 10 and Wednesday 11/04/2018. News Tank Football is a media partner of the event, and is present on site to cover the various discussions.

"We have been a unique club since our inception. For 120 years, we have been competing with home-grown players only. These players must be Basque players…