Handsome_Devil

It just seems counterproductive... we've been paying half a dozen managers and assistants, we had a squad of 500 we needed to cull etc. It's the softest of soft loans - at least for the time being - I can't imagine anyone wanting to tell the club or manager there's less to spend next season because we're shuffling some non-urgent money back. A different debate could be if new investment comes in...is it best that a money is made available to the club through the dilution of shares or should the Society straight out sell a percentage and get the cash - which would boost the fund for buying back if/when the time comes.

Correct. Though it should be said this wasn't part of a cunning plan, more a side perk of not asking the club to take money out of the immediate budget for repayment. It's not how I think the reserves should have been used (it certainly wasn't the original intention) but clearly it's hard to press for the money back now.

Aye, as much as the thought of people desperately lobbying me to secure the voting weight of my 10 shares or whatever it is, it's hardly conducive to smooth business.

Maybe it just indicated a willingness to be flexible and negotiate...perhaps a carrot, perhaps a bluff, who knows. What I would say is that entering any scenario where the scores of minor shareholders suddenly hold a balance of power shouldn't be considered. @capt_oats and others have mentioned again that while this guy obviously has an admirable record in his field, beyond an interest in sport there is nothing to suggest the day to day dirty work of running a club is on his agenda. Which seems to tie in with us going ahead with the new CEO appointment. As said, it doesn't seem necessary for him to have a controlling stake to do what we presume he wants to do - if he offers some money, lots of expertise and a positive attitude, we'll welcome him with open arms to do almost whatever he wants in his field, taking the majority of the risk and reward, while we protect ourselves for down the line.

He used to be shit, don't you know.

Worth adding a quick Google suggests most folk don't consider their debt problematic...some world. Anyway, I remain highly sceptical of our potential friend Erik but I'm happy we're at least talking to him. The Australians weren't even worth an email saying do one. His biography suggests there is at least a theoretical path to a win-win situation. Whether he'd be willing to move from his position (rumoured at least) to reach that a different matter ofc but only one way to find out.

Late to this but I hope someone has claimed only one end of Tannadice Street has a microclimate. I find all the moaning a bit ott...we play an outdoor sport in a wet country, occasionally a team will have a royal f**k up with their pitch. They didn't do it on purpose and screaming at them to take drastic action in mid season is daft. Shrug it off as a quirk to be dealt with and check they're making a reasonable attempt at fixing it in summer.

The Society has never previously been required to cover significant costs on a regular basis though. There is no reason to think that now when asked to raise more money, on an ongoing basis or as reserve, they can't - certainly to some extent. The 'worst case' scenario to leave us with a 750k deficit over a season hasn't happened yet and while it's fair to acknowledge it might, it should be said that it's far from fatal over a season should it happen. And for it to happen over the three-year ish window for us to fall into real bother, it would take the total collapse not only of our sporting performance but also the youth system, scouting etc. Possible yes, likely no. As for the investment, how much off the park investment would generate the sort of return of interest to an external person? Considering the main aim is first to spend that on the team, I think it's highly unlikely it would produce a worthy ROI. And if we instead chose to raise finance ourselves - through fundraising, loans etc, - we can do it much more securely. As for returns on player sales, that's theoretically possible but in practice... we use these sales to cover millions of expenses over a three-year cycle. The chance of regularly returning enough profit on that to justify the investment is slim. Remember we tried that under Dempster and failed, tried that under Alexander and it failed, Hibs for example just spent 700k on a guy who has half of Bair's goals. It's a notoriously hard thing to do. If the American wants to buy 20% or whatever and develop our media presence great, same if the local heroes from East Kilbride want to fund some players. Do it at their own risk knowing it is an incredibly risky investment in terms of making an actual return. If they want to do this to boast at the Country Club or get in the local papers and boost their business presence, fantastic. That's up to them but given all of us who have followed Motherwell/Scottish football have seen what happens elsewhere to investment, giving them the keys, ability to extract money from the club etc is a huge risk our current situation simply doesn't justify atm.

To take the second point first, Hutchison had a local interest and if there were any of these angels out there now they'd have been in touch. Everyone interested now has made it clear this isn't philanthropy so checking how much they want and how they intend to get it is pretty obvious due diligence. But for the first point, why on earth would they do that? Our entire business model is geared around playing football - which brings prize money - and selling players. We do not need to cope without these things because over a longer financial cycle we will probably always have them. And in the case of disaster, the short-term modern contracts we all hate sportingly are the financial safety net to gut costs overnight. We always should be budgeting for a deficit in the worst case scenario. To run guaranteed balanced books would be madness. So there being a theoretical deficit isn't a problem. A concern is definitely that this potential number is edging up. But as you say no one in the Society has shown details yet, no one advocating for investment has produced a fag packet showing how someone taking a solid ROI out the club will leave us better off. The Society has never tried to fund the club properly and details of that - and how Caldwell intends to increase direct revenue - are needed. The risk of doing that ourselves is much lower than handing over the keys...it should absolutely be tried first before we do something stupid we regret.

Can't argue with that, it reads like a summary of the greatest hits from on here!

It's unrealistic to think they'll keep it under wraps, they've absolutely no way of practically enforcing that.

Can you imagine interviewing Kettlewell for a job, you'd hire him just for some peace and quiet. Wonder if he actually has something against Grant Russell (they surely didn't overlap?) or if he was just taking the chance to suck up to Caldwell?

You're right there's a distinction but it's not really a big assumption. I will, for example, get the offer as an independent shareholder, as will plenty of others. The Society will get these details as a shareholder and there's no reason the board won't then pass this on to everyone when the information will kick around anyway. The official info won't be confidential by any means and they'd just look daft.

I can understand why the Society went quiet when it did for various reasons but one of the big problems with that was the perception that things aren't going well or we have major issues. We don't, things are - broadly speaking - fine. Combine that with our governance being neglected to nothing and the JM/DW approach and we've got ourselves into a muddle over very little imho. Wildly changing course in a panic rather than attempting to slightly adjust would be a big mistake.

It's based on the balance of probability and to what extent spending time/money on this is an effective use of resources given the opportunity cost involved.

All shareholders will get the proposals so Society members will get everything official for sure. Where the Society board may get more than the average Joe is in off the record briefings...but ultimately this is for the purchaser to decide. It's not a normal business they're buying and they'll know without details they will probably lose the vote.

The investors probably want to keep out the public eye incase they fail and/or try again somewhere else. It's not unreasonable and they will know this comes at the cost of rumours. Agree on the whispered numbers though, if that's the ballpark truth it's a total waste of time.

Personal circumstances aside, most fans would get on board again very quickly because that's what fans do. It's not failure that kills clubs our size, it's apathy that comes from a lack of hope. You see how Dunfermline or Falkirk fans suddenly get going again when things get exciting and you can look at the rollercoaster of on the bus/off the bus Killie have had in the last three years. Obviously we hope not to have a long spell out, that would put us in serious bother...but there's clearly a window where you can get the fans to rally before it comes to that.

Aye, this seems utterly insane that the owners of the club are taking a backseat in the negotiations on whether to sell. It brings the question back to just what mandate McMahon has to be doing this? Our governance structure is totally fucked.

That's certainly logical but it still leaves the question of what the investor is getting out of it. I've said since the start I was much more interested in what we're giving away than what we're getting.

Would love this game and the Dundee v Rangers to be postponed just for the giggles. I have an odd feeling about it as I think we'll lose if it goes ahead but we'll play better than the last couple as this fixture will suit us more. Would be delighted with a point but think we'll lose 2-1.

The ridiculous Aussie idea being binned is a good first step. I would, with an abundance of caution, be curious to hear details on this one. But I suspect common sense will prevail and we'll say thanks but no thanks when we see the details.

It's definitely changed with fifth basically guaranteed Europe but there were times in the early days when being sixth and miles from Europe in third or fourth was hailed as an outstanding success compared to being seventh...which I just didn't get, midtable nothingness is midtable nothingness for me, whether you're above or below the dotted line after 33 games is irrelevant (sporting wise I mean here, clearly cash yada yada).

I didn't like it initially and I would still prefer an alternative linked to bigger changes in our league system - but when you rule out everyone's fantasy ideas like that and accept the pre-existing boxes you need to tick, I think it's as good as we can possibly do. The split might be artificial excitement but it's excitement nonetheless and in the years there are true relegation/European fights there's no doubt it's cracking. Ultimately there's a reason why it has barely changed in 20-plus years and that's because there's no viable better option.

No doubt the family thing plays a part but I suspect it's also just the modern world. Previously you'd only heavily talk about the game with your mates on Saturday, work a week and look forward to doing it again. Now we spend hours in between on social media and forums telling each other how shite we are, what a miserable season it is and, in some cases, the club is doomed as a long-term entity. And back then you hated to miss a game because more often that not there were no highlights either. There are 228 games in a current top-flight season, the majority are like yesterday's - two sets of shite largely cancelling each other out and instantly forgettable. That's just the nature of where we are.