From Bill Shankly to DAOs: What Century-Old Football Clubs Teach Web3 About Surviving Cycles

In April 1973, Liverpool manager Bill Shankly stood with his team in the Kop stand, proudly displaying the league trophy to thousands of cheering fans. A police officer nearby threw aside a Liverpool scarf that had been tossed toward him—a minor, dismissive gesture. Shankly immediately stepped forward, picked up the scarf, and wrapped it around his own neck. Turning to the officer, he said simply: “Don’t do that. It’s precious.” This wasn’t just an act of reverence for a piece of fabric. It was Bill Shankly embodying a philosophy that would define Liverpool for generations—that fans, their emotions, and their connection to the club were sacrosanct. Nearly half a century later, as Web3 communities grapple with cycles of boom and bust, retaining members through downturns, and maintaining genuine belonging amidst speculation and hype, Shankly’s wisdom offers an unexpected blueprint.

What if the real lesson from century-old European football clubs isn’t their trophy cabinets, but their survival? These institutions have witnessed wars, economic depressions, financial scandals, and the complete transformation of their sport. Yet generations of people—across different social classes, nationalities, and eras—continue to invest time, emotion, and resources into the same community. For Web3, this poses a humbling question: While the industry excels at tokenomics, governance mechanisms, and growth hacks, why do so few projects build communities that last through market cycles? The answer may lie in returning to first principles—to the dusty archives of how football clubs built their foundations.

Building Identity: Football’s Blueprint for Web3 Community Roots

Picture a workers’ pub outside Manchester in 1878. After their shifts at the railway locomotive factory, a group of ordinary laborers gathered to discuss an ambitious idea—officially forming a football team. These workers couldn’t afford wealthy patrons or sophisticated infrastructure. What they had was shared identity: a common workplace, a working-class pride, and a desire for community. They adopted their railway company’s iconic green and gold colors, rented a nearby pub as their locker room, and in Newton Heath, Manchester United was quietly born. This wasn’t a top-down corporate initiative. It emerged organically from the grassroots.

Across the continent, similar stories echoed. In 1899 Barcelona, a Swiss expat named Hans Gamper placed a simple advertisement in a local sports magazine: he was looking for people interested in forming a football team. The response created something remarkable—a gathering of Swiss, Catalans, Englishmen, and Germans united by a shared passion. Gamper’s vision transcended mere sport. He envisioned an organization open to everyone, where members could speak freely and where a democratic spirit governed decisions. To honor his adopted home, Gamper infused FC Barcelona with Catalan cultural identity, embedding it so deeply that the club became synonymous with the region’s soul.

The pattern becomes clear: these clubs didn’t succeed because they had better players or bigger budgets. They succeeded because they established something more fundamental—a sense of belonging rooted in shared identity. The colors, the anthem, the stadium, the local stories—these weren’t marketing tools. They were identity anchors that made ordinary people feel part of something larger than themselves.

For Web3 projects, this lesson cuts to the heart of a persistent problem. Too many startups launch with sophisticated tokenomics and ambitious roadmaps but fail to answer a basic question: Why should someone care? What makes your project different from the next token on the blockchain? Football clubs discovered the answer centuries ago: you make people care by giving them an identity to belong to, a narrative they can be part of, a community they can be proud of.

The most successful Web3 projects need to establish their cultural foundation from day one. This doesn’t mean copying football club aesthetics. It means identifying what makes your community unique—whether that’s a specific technological mission, a subcultural identity, a shared vision of how Web3 should evolve, or a commitment to solving real-world problems. Early adopters should feel they’re not just buying a token; they’re joining a movement with distinct values and identity. When this foundation exists, when users genuinely feel they belong to something meaningful, the community develops immunity to market cycles. During downturns, these members don’t panic-sell—they hold because leaving feels like betraying something they’ve invested themselves into.

When Crisis Hits: How Community Governance Saved Football Clubs—and What Web3 Can Learn

The true test of any community comes not during prosperity, but during crisis. In the late 2000s, Liverpool faced a financial catastrophe. The club’s American owners had mismanaged finances so severely that the institution—a symbol of the city for over a century—teetered on the edge of collapse. Performance plummeted, debts mounted, and despair seemed inevitable. Yet something remarkable happened: the fans didn’t abandon the club. Instead, they organized.

Drawing inspiration from their spiritual guide Bill Shankly, who had once said, “In a football club, there is a sacred trinity of people—players, coaches, and fans. The board members are not involved; they’re just there to sign checks,” Liverpool supporters founded the “Spirit of Shankly” movement. Between 2008 and 2010, tens of thousands of fans staged demonstrations at Anfield, carrying banners, organizing sit-ins after matches, and even traveling to London’s High Court to support legal action against the unpopular owners. The fans’ resolve didn’t waver. Eventually, the owners capitulated and sold the club. The new management, understanding what had kept the club alive through the crisis, released an open letter: “The club’s unique bond lies in the sacred relationship between the fans and the team; it’s the beating of our heart.” They froze ticket prices for years to rebuild trust.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. Borussia Dortmund, after accumulating massive debts from overspending, faced near-bankruptcy in 2005. Fans launched the “We Are Dortmund” movement. Tens of thousands sang outside the stadium. Players voluntarily accepted 20% pay cuts. Local businesses and government pitched in. The club survived through collective sacrifice, not despite the crisis, but because of how unified the community became in facing it. The experience transformed into a new cultural identity: “Echte Liebe”—True Love—emphasizing unconditional support through any adversity.

The mechanism underlying these rescues wasn’t charity; it was ownership. In Spain, Barcelona and Real Madrid maintain membership systems with no shareholder dividends. The club president is elected by the members—over 150,000 in Barcelona’s case—creating a decentralized ownership structure that makes it nearly impossible for any single conglomerate to control the institution. When Barcelona faced financial pressure in the mid-2010s and received takeover offers, it was the votes of tens of thousands of members that preserved independence. Similarly, most German clubs follow the “50+1” rule: fans and members must hold a majority stake, ensuring that the club operates more like public property than corporate asset.

This governance innovation is striking because it predates blockchain by over a century. These clubs discovered something Web3 has been trying to recreate with smart contracts: when people hold genuine governance power, when their votes matter and their interests are structurally protected, they behave differently. They don’t flee at the first sign of trouble. They participate in problem-solving.

For Web3 projects, the parallel is direct and actionable. First, move beyond token-washing—where governance tokens exist on paper but real power remains centralized. Implement genuine community voting on major decisions: protocol changes, resource allocation, partnership directions. When users have actual governance power, when their votes demonstrably influence outcomes, they develop a stakeholder mentality. They stop thinking like speculators and start thinking like co-owners.

Second, structure token incentives to encourage long-term participation. Football clubs use season tickets and membership to align fan interests with club success over years, not quarters. Similarly, Web3 projects should consider governance tokens with time-weighted voting (longer holders have more power), revenue-sharing mechanisms, or graduated benefits that reward sustained participation. When community members are both economically and emotionally invested, they’re exponentially more likely to hold through bear markets and help improve the project rather than abandoning it.

Third—and this is often overlooked—emphasize spiritual and narrative motivation alongside economic incentives. Bill Shankly understood that fans would sacrifice not because of financial returns, but because of emotional connection and shared purpose. Web3 communities need the same. During difficult periods, project teams should communicate with radical honesty: acknowledge mistakes, express genuine gratitude to the community, and reinforce the project’s mission and values. Users who feel respected and seen are far more likely to stick around and even advocate for the project to others.

Bill Shankly and Spiritual Leadership: The Missing Ingredient in Web3 Communities

If identity and governance provide the structural foundation for lasting communities, spiritual leadership provides the emotional connective tissue. Throughout football’s history, certain figures transcend their roles to become symbols—anchors around which collective narratives crystallize.

Bill Shankly exemplified this archetype. A manager born into a Scottish mining family, Shankly believed in a socialist philosophy of football: teamwork, shared glory, shared struggle. His famous words—“From the beginning of my managerial career, I have tried to show the fans that they are the most important people”—weren’t PR speak. He lived them. Shankly personally replied to fan letters using an old-fashioned typewriter. He used the public address system to explain roster decisions and his thoughts on recent performances. He helped fans who needed tickets, writing in his autobiography that he’d “give anything as long as it was reasonable” to support them.

When Shankly died in 1981, tens of thousands of Liverpool fans spontaneously took to the streets. He wasn’t just a manager; he had become a spiritual totem for the entire city, a figure whose values and charisma defined an era. Decades later, when fans needed to rally against corrupt ownership, they drew directly on Shankly’s legacy, naming their movement the “Spirit of Shankly.” His story provided the narrative fuel.

Similar figures populate football’s pantheon. Sir Alex Ferguson built the Manchester United dynasty not just through tactics, but through personality and vision—becoming a godfather figure whose wisdom guided multiple generations. Johan Cruyff transformed Barcelona as both player and coach, establishing a playing philosophy so distinct and beautiful that it became inseparable from the club’s identity. These figures’ values, their decisions, their moments of triumph and vulnerability became shared memories that bonded entire communities.

The Web3 space has largely dismissed the need for such figures, operating under a (laudable but naive) assumption that decentralization means depersonalization. Yet human communities have never worked that way. People are drawn to clear values, to authentic stories, and to figures who embody the community’s deepest principles. This doesn’t mean advocating personality cults or centralization. Rather, it means recognizing that core team members and project spokespeople have a responsibility to provide spiritual guidance—to be transparent about their values, to communicate with genuine care for the community, and to embody the project’s mission in their actions.

A legendary figure like Bill Shankly became powerful not because he hoarded information or mystified decision-making, but because he radiated care and clarity about what the club stood for. For Web3 projects, key leaders can do the same: communicate regularly and authentically with the community, admit mistakes, celebrate shared victories, and consistently demonstrate that the long-term health of the community matters more than short-term metrics.

However, there’s an important caveat: over-reliance on a single figure creates fragility. When legends inevitably depart, communities that depend entirely on their charisma can collapse. The solution isn’t to eliminate such figures, but to ensure that their values, lessons, and spiritual principles are embedded into the community’s systems and culture. Bill Shankly’s legacy survived his death because Liverpool FC institutionalized his philosophy—it became part of the club’s DNA, embedded in how decisions were made and how the community understood itself. Similarly, Web3 projects should ensure that the values embodied by key figures are codified in governance structures, community norms, and institutional culture. This way, even as specific individuals move on, the spiritual foundation remains intact.

Lessons for Web3: Building Communities That Weather Any Cycle

The journey from Manchester’s railway workers to Barcelona’s international fellowship to Bill Shankly’s revolutionary management reveals a simple truth: communities that last aren’t built on hype, tokens, or even technology. They’re built on identity, genuine governance, and spiritual cohesion. Football clubs didn’t survive a century because they had the best business model; they survived because generations of people felt they belonged to something sacred.

Web3 has an extraordinary technological advantage: the ability to embed governance directly into code, to align incentives transparently, to create real ownership structures without geographical limitation. Yet many projects squander this advantage by treating community as a secondary concern, a growth channel rather than a foundation.

The deeper lesson from century-old football clubs is this: build identity first, governance second, and use clear spiritual leadership to weave these into a cohesive narrative. Give people something to belong to beyond the token price. Create governance structures that make participation real and consequential. Cultivate leaders who communicate with authenticity and care. When these elements align, communities develop resilience that survives bear markets, security breaches, failed product launches, and all the inevitable challenges that test any human organization.

Bill Shankly once said, “You have to know how to treat [fans] and win their support.” His words, spoken about a football club in 1960s Liverpool, contain a wisdom that Web3 communities desperately need. Not manipulation. Not extraction. Genuine respect for the people who choose to invest their energy and resources into a shared project. The clubs that achieved this respect didn’t just win trophies; they built legacies. That’s the prize Web3 should be pursuing.