The Liverpool fans who walked out of Anfield on Saturday in protest at proposed ticket price increases reflect the wider discontent of football supporters across the country, who see clubs making millions from TV revenues while they pay more at the gate season after season.

In an ideal world, the extra millions coming into the game from next year’s TV deal should be good news for the whole of our game but in reality, talk of trickle-down, extra cash for the grassroots and the strengthening of our national game is the same spin that the Premier League has put on every TV deal since it was formed, 1992.

The reality is that the 20 clubs in the Premier League gorge themselves at the table heavily laden with TV cash paid for by supporters’ subscriptions while fans are asked to pay more, often much more, to watch the game they love.

No wonder supporters are protesting. Ground walkouts are significant, but are they enough? Liverpool’s owners may have agreed to a price freeze this time, but those holding the purse strings don’t have to listen to protests when they can fill grounds with more affluent fans willing and able to afford the increasing prices. The FA is not going to act. The interests of owners of just 20 clubs now effectively control the strategic direction of our national game.

Rising ticket prices and fans being treated as an afterthought is a failure of regulation. You cannot blame these 20 owners for looking after themselves. It’s what they do. The FA has failed in its role as guardian of the game. The advent of the Premier League was supposed to hail a new era of success for English football, but the reality has been stagnation in development of talent and deepening exploitation of supporter loyalty.

Effective regulation would see the TV revenue invested in developing the structure of the game and subsidising match ticket costs – creating pathways for playing talent on the field while nurturing the next generation of fans too.

‘The alternative to rising ticket prices and fans being priced out of the game is supporter ownership and tighter regulation.’ Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby/AFP/Getty Images

Many fans have started to take matters into their own hands. Seeing their clubs moving further and further away from the ordinary supporter, they have set up their own clubs under supporter ownership or have walked away from top-flight football altogether to follow the non-league game.

Non-league football is more affordable and supporters generally feel closer to the action on and off the pitch. The quality on offer in the lower leagues is better than you might think. And, when you have a stake in your club, the excitement and involvement is much more apparent. Nowhere is this more the case than where clubs are owned by supporters themselves.

Thanks to AFC Wimbledon, Exeter City, Portsmouth and Swansea’s Swans Trust, fans have some successful examples as they begin to gain a meaningful stake in a growing number of clubs. A toe-hold has become a foothold.

At FC United we celebrated 10 years as a supporter-owned club last year with the opening of our own ground. Our aim is to build a club model that is responsive to fans’ concerns and we have worked hard to create suitable vehicles for raising serious amounts of funds for the club too.

Our ticket prices are affordable. It’s just £9 for an adult to watch a game, £5 for concessions and £2 for under-18s. Our pay-what-you-can-afford season ticket scheme has seen us sell more season tickets this season than ever before. Our average attendances are up by 65% on last season and we have 5,300 members, the largest of any supporter-owned club in the country. Involving supporters in the running of the game and owning your own club works.

Crucially it is the fan ownership aspect – ordinary football supporters doing extraordinary things – that has made the difference and got us to where we are today. It has been recognised by many as offering a real alternative to the way football is run and financed.

With half of our new ground’s cost of £6.3m raised by ordinary supporters, we have proved the power of fan ownership. Our success has been based on creating social impact backed by a solid business plan. Social investment is not just about a financial return it’s also about empowering local communities through strengthening involvement in the things that are important in people’s lives.

The alternative to rising ticket prices and fans being priced out of the game is supporter ownership and tighter regulation. At the end of the day, it is about priorities. In whose interests should the game be run? Our priorities at FC United and at other supporter-owned clubs are fans and the wider community, not raising profits and increasing market share.