To the many and storied benefits of the Premier League revolution, chalk up the increasing requirement for committed fans to have a finance qualification. "Three years ago," reflects Everton supporter Dave Kelly, "if you'd have said 'enabling grant' to a supporter on the Goodison Road, they'd have thought you were talking about Tony Grant's brother."

Tony Grant is a former Everton midfielder, should you be unfamiliar with his work, while his brother Enabling is viewed by some as the saviour of any number of successful football clubs who bafflingly find themselves financially embarrassed. You can find local variants on this learning curve from Portsmouth to Manchester and beyond, among supporters to whom the men who remade football promised the moon on a stick. As Kelly, chair of an Everton supporters' association, puts it: "What has happened in football has politicised fans."

It was never likely to do anything else in Liverpool Walton, a constituency within a city where sport and politics have long entwined, a relationship idealised in Bill Shankly's passionate socialism but reaching its nadir in the continuing struggle to call authority to account for the Hillsborough tragedy in 1989. Within this Labour stronghold sit two Premier League clubs, Everton and Liverpool, the former chaired by Bill Kenwright, the latter owned — if owned doesn't seem a quaint euphemism for the toxic cocktail of debt and leveraged buyout that these days constitutes purchase — by the American businessmen Tom Hicks and George Gillett. After three years of broken promises over a new stadium, and increasingly bitter protests by supporters, it emerged on Saturday that a refinancing deal will lead to the sale of the club. There are not believed to be plans to give the famous Shankly statue two new bronze friends.

On the Premier League form book, Liverpool could end up in the hands of Kim Jong-il or a mystery consortium of penniless sheikhs, but in the future, under an expected Labour manifesto pledge, clubs could be forced to hand a 25% stake to fans in recognition of their importance to the local community.

If "forced" feels a little optimistic, given that the inevitable legal challenges would make legitimising the Iraq invasion look like a cakewalk, Liverpool Walton nevertheless feels a useful place to consider the impact of a policy under which FSA-recognised and audited supporters' trusts would be responsible for fostering and maintaining links with the surrounding area. Wander the dilapidated streets round Goodison Park and the fabled trickle-down of football riches is undetectable, while on the other side of Stanley Park, the contrast is even more grimly pronounced. Most of the roads fanning out from Anfield are nothing but boarded-up houses, with unemployment running as high as 43%. The dissonance is not lost on Labour candidate Steve Rotheram, a former lord mayor of Liverpool who seeks to succeed the retiring Peter Kilfoyle as Walton MP. "Should the football clubs want to," he says, "they could have a major impact on the lives of the people most affected by their presence. They don't take corporate social responsibility as seriously as fans would like them to, but I have no doubt fan representation would articulate that and stand up for the local people."

In the US, the radical sportswriter Dave Zirin has repeatedly highlighted the glaring contrast between almost spaceship-like stadia plonked down in cities to rake in money while deprived communities around them struggle to get by – a chasm most depressingly evident in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which Zirin branded "a gruesome collision of sports and politics, as thousands sat stranded in a sports arena where most could never have afforded even the cheapest ticket".

Football, as in the version without helmets, is different. Roaming franchises don't just blow into town: here, football clubs sprang from the streets and factories surrounding them and for decades remained firmly rooted in the communities. Yet walking the eerily derelict streets round Anfield on a match day it is difficult not to conclude that football's current model is dysfunctional. "That two-way relationship [between club and community] was there, but it has gone," laments James McKenna of the Liverpool supporters' group Spirit of Shankly.

It shouldn't just be about football clubs progressing as businesses and leaving the communities behind in their wake," concurs Dave Kelly. "It should be hand in glove. Big business has let both the clubs and the community down." Indeed, the hokey-cokey over the redevelopment or relocation of both grounds has paralysed much of Walton for years. "They talk about this business model that's awash with money," says Kelly, "but in essence they have had the whole of north Liverpool on hold while the football clubs decide what to do. These communities have served those clubs for decades – it's about time they put something back. There's a moral obligation. 'The people's club' shouldn't just be a banner draped off the Park End stand."

Even so, despite inevitable local support for a supporter representation policy, it would be misleading to cast it as a vote-winner in an area where since 1992, Labour has polled over 70%. To lose this one, Steve Rotheram would probably have to be found in flagrante with Gary Neville, and the policy isn't the talk of the doorstep. "I'm afraid," he sighs, "that I'm hearing mostly about the apathy towards politics and politicians."