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Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons


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4 hours ago, Swello said:

We had a cycle that was very (record) profitable but we are at the end of it and so those conditions aren't there at the moment unless we massively over-achieve on the pitch, which isn't looking likely.

It's not dependent on the pitch in terms of results though rather finding a diamond...given Turnbull was ooc 2019 (ish) it can hardly be said we knew his 3m was coming well in advance. If Miller suddenly lights the blue touch paper or even someone like Johnston becomes a million quid player - which with prices in England isn't beyond fantasy - the three-year cycle looks immediately different.

As for results on the pitch, a change doesn't look likely but then it often doesnt...93 to 94, 07 to 08, the Alexander surge, third with Robinson before (and two cup finals while finishing eighth or whatever)...so long as the bad season isn't relegation, the next one being fucking anything is the nature of Scottish football!

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7 minutes ago, wellboy1991 said:

Would there be this much interest if his name was say Ricky Dawson from Brisbane……

Celtic fans would still be saying we are copying them by signing an Aussie.

He get's the furrener benefit of doot. 

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5 hours ago, Widge said:

A better run club would have invested the money we had gained in a sensible manner with long term strategy, we haven't done that so any good work from a previous life has just been undone and we're back to square one. Which is still a totally solvent club running within its means and with a rainy day fund (just not nearly as large as it should be).   

Curious what you mean by investing. Like financial investments? Infrastructure? Or in the playing squad?

I think we have used some of the money to invest in infrastructure, with the pitch upgrade reportedly saving us 100k per year, and opening up possible revenue streams such as internationals and pre season friendlies. 

Investing in the playing side is tricky. For the youth side of things, maybe we are investing? But we won't know if that pays of for years. As far as the first team goes, look at Aberdeen, hibs and united, their wage bills are multiples of ours, and I don't think it has made them protortionally better than us. It does look like we're trying to purchase "assets" with the likes of Tierney and Danzaki. Chances are that was the idea with Shields, Mahon, and Woolery too, maybe even Kelly. 

On the financial side, f**k knows, not my area. However, considering how we looked after ourselves with insurance and the like, it seems like we have our heads screwed on in that department. I don't know what clubs tend to do with their cash reserves, but I think we have expertise in that area on our board.

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On the whole Danzaki thing. I mean, it's not like the A-League is exotic.

Devlin, Atkinson, Rowles, Baccus, Cancar, Birighitti...some have been better than others but it's become a pretty well tapped market for teams at our level in recent seasons.

Fair play to @thisGRAEME for calling it as a market we should be looking at in a post last year...

On 07/11/2022 at 13:16, thisGRAEME said:

Forget Gogic, we should simply have waited until Keanu Baccus arrived at the airport and bundled him into a Motherwell taxi.

I do wonder if we're going to expand our scouting more internationally, as much as some of the overseas guys that clubs have brought in have been terrible (hello Chris Mueller and Mark Birighitti)  it's a market that we can delve into that England can't really any more due to their work permit limitations, compared to our "sure come on in" policy.

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McMahon rightfully conveyed we’d made £5m in 5 years. Maybe unique outside the OF. Granted a once in a generation player made the lions share of that.

The real question here is could it have been in excess of £5m if we done things better/quicker/more efficient?

This plan to look for a benevolent angel, business etc. and it’s failure to be launched was a major oversight if, as described the way to be a true safety net.

It’s a prime example of us as a club not speculating to accumulate but I wouldn’t say it’s as risky as players or the long term return on youth which is even tricker to get a result from.

Sometimes I wish the club would just do the sensible thing. If you’re after min £750k from this avenue, hire a marketing/PR professional at the top of their game on 10% of what you’re looking to make. Just pay the market rate rather than doing it from an under resourced department. When you consider this one role could bring in more than a cup run to a semi or top six and euro qualification with a lot less left to chance then it’s mad stuff.

Another thing is the costs of staging matches are pretty much fixed yet we have +3,500 seats available every game. Hire a dedicated salesperson on £30k, once they sign up season ticket 101, the club is in profit. Would it be that hard to get the low hanging fruit of lapsed and wayward fans back if you have a dedicated role putting in 35 hours a week 46 weeks a year?

We also need to accept that a significant portion of our playing budget is spunked up the wall every year. In the past 5 years we’ve also had to pay compo to dud managers. This is just the reality. 

Edited by Kapowzer
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1 hour ago, Kapowzer said:

 

This plan to look for a benevolent angel, business etc. and its failure to be launched was a major oversight if, as described the way to be a true safety net.

 

About 18 months ago an American businessman who was interested in investing significant money was introduced to the club through a 3rd party. Discussions went on for 3 or 4 months then the club decided against it for whatever reasons. Not sure of the reasons but I’m sure being fan owned and the amount of control they wanted would have something to do with it. If people are going to invest a significant amount of money they then want some say is how the club is run. 

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33 minutes ago, Lobby Dossar said:

About 18 months ago an American businessman who was interested in investing significant money was introduced to the club through a 3rd party. Discussions went on for 3 or 4 months then the club decided against it for whatever reasons. Not sure of the reasons but I’m sure being fan owned and the amount of control they wanted would have something to do with it. If people are going to invest a significant amount of money they then want some say is how the club is run. 

Very much this. I guess they could buy up the available (30%) shares for around £1m. 

But why would anyone outside of a fan like John Boyle agree to put significant money into Motherwell FC as an act of philanthropy ? We do that through the Well society but even those of us who have put in a decent chunk over the years are only talking around £10k.

Les Hutchison who is reputedly worth (or his wife) tens or hundreds of millions of £ was not willing to throw money at Motherwell. Yes he wrote of a decent amount but if I recall he also got more than he wrote off back from the club for his investment. And he had strong ties to the area and to the club via his daughter. 

Ultimately we stick with the Well Society and cut our cloth accordingly which would threaten our top flight status. That or a wealthy owner takes us over as a vanity project and the fan ownership model disappears. The latter is most unlikely unless one of us wins the Euromillions.

 

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1 hour ago, Lobby Dossar said:

About 18 months ago an American businessman who was interested in investing significant money was introduced to the club through a 3rd party. Discussions went on for 3 or 4 months then the club decided against it for whatever reasons. Not sure of the reasons but I’m sure being fan owned and the amount of control they wanted would have something to do with it. If people are going to invest a significant amount of money they then want some say is how the club is run. 

Yes that or another was hinted at during the AGM, talks were in place in advance of covid and have never been revisited for whatever reason. 

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24 minutes ago, Phillips455 said:

Scottish cup TV fixtures announced. ViaPlay got the old firm, BBC picked the Hearts and the Darvel Matches.

 

So Saturday 3pm Kick off it is!

Yas. This season is already paying for a few years of Cup boredom. Now all we need is to get through this and draw the winner of the Ayr/Cove/Elgin tie away and I promise I'll never complain about boring fixtures/Morton again. 

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1 hour ago, Swello said:

Yas. This season is already paying for a few years of Cup boredom. Now all we need is to get through this and draw the winner of the Ayr/Cove/Elgin tie away and I promise I'll never complain about boring fixtures/Morton again. 

All we need is for someone to forget to microwave the two OF balls and we may have a chance.

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