Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[thisGRAEME]

14 hours ago, rowsdower said:

The session was good, and it's encouraging to see the plans that the current board have. There's a lot for them to cover, so I like the idea of getting others involved in the work streams.

My only issue coming out of the session was that some of the issues raised need to be handled by the club- like raising match day revenues, recruiting new fans, budgeting, brand, etc. Increasing the society's presence on the executive board as planned (and maybe one day having a CEO) will hopefully help that.

Aye, I mean this is a well society issue as well I suppose, in that there's no clear separation in people's minds between what the society does and does not do. It isn't actually outlined in clear terms beyond "The society are the majority shareholder", and if that's the case then you can see why that kind of thing becomes a thought.

[Busta Nut]

I'm amazed at the amount of folk who claim to be pros or ex pros related to the football world who seem to think that Dan Casey should have been sent off.

[Blink182]

7 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

I'm amazed at the amount of folk who claim to be pros or ex pros related to the football world who seem to think that Dan Casey should have been sent off.

Agreed. And another reason why this mental idea that Scottish/English media love to punt that ex-players should help out in the VAR room is mental. 

[Archie McSquackle]

You wonder if opinions would be different if someone photoshopped the strips.

[Busta Nut]

15 minutes ago, Blink182 said:

ex-players should help out in the VAR room is mental. 

f**k me the amount of times I have heard that recently, worst idea in the world. Most of them are morons.

['WellDel]

32 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

I'm amazed at the amount of folk who claim to be pros or ex pros related to the football world who seem to think that Dan Casey should have been sent off.

 

22 minutes ago, Archie McSquackle said:

You wonder if opinions would be different if someone photoshopped the strips.

The correlation between these two points, and the fact it is wholly old firm-centric, is the key to the whole problem with Scottish football media.

Any supposed controversial incident is quoted on by Sutton (Celtic) or Boyd (Rangers) etc, etc., and they all endeavour to build the rhetoric that theirs is the most hard done by side of the two. This just feeds into the perpetual state of victimhood the 10's of thousands of the mouthbreathers on both sides constantly live in and simply garners each shtey, misinformed post or article about it easy clicks. Some of these journos and publications aren't as thick as they make out you know. Leckie, Speirs, The S*n, The Record or whatever, any one of us could write that shite and take the easy buck it brings. The other 40 teams in the league and actual facts and serious takes/discussions matter not a single fcuk to them. 

If Casey had made that challenge on, say, Armstrong of Kilmarnock, it would have stopped being a talking point at about 5pm on Saturday. Only because it involved one of the uglies and their shitey two-way title race has it even been a thing. Fùck them all.

[ropy]

There have been a number of these ‘follow through’ incidents that have resulted in cards where I have thought that the ‘victim’ has been responsible for putting themselves in danger.  In this case McCausland makes a half hearted challenge once the ball is gone.

Its the same as ducking your head down then claiming a high foot against you.

Both players actions should be considered before judgement is made.

[Desp]

1 hour ago, Cedrics Mighty Well Army said:

Poke in the eye with a flag stick.

I'm led to believe the assailant remains at large.

[eliphas]

1 hour ago, thisGRAEME said:

Aye, I mean this is a well society issue as well I suppose, in that there's no clear separation in people's minds between what the society does and does not do. It isn't actually outlined in clear terms beyond "The society are the majority shareholder", and if that's the case then you can see why that kind of thing becomes a thought.

Yeah definitely.   To be perfectly honest, through a combination forgetfulness, laziness, lack of interest and having a small child I've completely lost track of who does what and what feeds into what and what does not between the The Club, The Well Society and The Community Trust.  

If someone could do me a venn diagram that would be brilliant?

If I was to think about it, since the well society got majority ownership and had seats on the club board I've always thought basically the well society could push through whatever they wanted essentially (i.e. if we kidded on the well society were a foreign investor tyrant for a minute) but the WS haven't and we've essentially been owners but let 'the club' and it's employees do things with occasional WS input? Is that about right? 

[JayMFC]

28 minutes ago, eliphas said:

Yeah definitely.   To be perfectly honest, through a combination forgetfulness, laziness, lack of interest and having a small child I've completely lost track of who does what and what feeds into what and what does not between the The Club, The Well Society and The Community Trust.  

If someone could do me a venn diagram that would be brilliant?

If I was to think about it, since the well society got majority ownership and had seats on the club board I've always thought basically the well society could push through whatever they wanted essentially (i.e. if we kidded on the well society were a foreign investor tyrant for a minute) but the WS haven't and we've essentially been owners but let 'the club' and it's employees do things with occasional WS input? Is that about right? 

Not to hark on about the golden days of a standalone website, but there essentially was a venn diagram on there showing how the Executive Board, Well Society Board, and the (at the time) Supervisory Board related to each other.

The short answer to your question is no, the Executive Board call the shots with regards to the football club, not the Well Society Board. The setup - certainly since I've been involved - has been a five person Executive Board with the Well Society possessing two seats. The Chairman throughout that time has not been a Well Society representative. This has essentially meant that the Well Society Board can make a case to its two representatives on the Executive Board for something, while hoping that that they then make that case on the Society's behalf within the club boardroom. But even if they do, there's no guarantee that the Executive Board will make anything of it.

It's worth highlighting, however, that everyone who sits on the Executive Board is a Well Society member. This has been the counter-argument the many times that some of us have asked for a 50/50 split on the Executive Board, as any other majority shareholder would expect (at the very least). Part of the Society's strategy going forward, though, is to ensure a more even split on the Executive Board so that we can ensure there's a direct line from Well Society members to the Well Society Board to the Executive Board. That's something that has to be given serious consideration though, because there's got to be an effort to get the right skills and experience in the boardroom, alongside that representation - rather than just flinging an extra body in there as a tickbox exercise.

Edited March 5 by JayMFC

[Handsome_Devil]

28 minutes ago, eliphas said:

Yeah definitely.   To be perfectly honest, through a combination forgetfulness, laziness, lack of interest and having a small child I've completely lost track of who does what and what feeds into what and what does not between the The Club, The Well Society and The Community Trust.  

If someone could do me a venn diagram that would be brilliant?

If I was to think about it, since the well society got majority ownership and had seats on the club board I've always thought basically the well society could push through whatever they wanted essentially (i.e. if we kidded on the well society were a foreign investor tyrant for a minute) but the WS haven't and we've essentially been owners but let 'the club' and it's employees do things with occasional WS input? Is that about right? 

It's becoming clear that the governance and lines of responsibility being so muddled has become a big problem. Which is not meant to be critical of how it got here - that's simply been one of these things which happened as a natural consequence of two main things

1) Burrows running the club from top to bottom

2) Nearly everyone was delighted both that he was willing to run it and how he was doing it

3) Time - people simply forget the original premise of the Society (which was abundantly clear) while simultaneously it failed to adapt to changing circumstances. Largely due to to points 1&2.

The Society owns the club and can do what it want over the long term - it can set the direction and has control over executive board (or should - clearly big/wee man syndrome has taken over here and needs changed). But that's not to say it can change things this afternoon if it didn't like what was for lunch.

Certainly mistakes have been made, some things with good intentions or others because of sloppiness...but I'd say that's definitely not a reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The last year's have been successful despite these mistakes, they're now recognised and we're trying to fix them.

[JamesP_81]

1 hour ago, 'WellDel said:

 

The correlation between these two points, and the fact it is wholly old firm-centric, is the key to the whole problem with Scottish football media.

Any supposed controversial incident is quoted on by Sutton (Celtic) or Boyd (Rangers) etc, etc., and they all endeavour to build the rhetoric that theirs is the most hard done by side of the two. This just feeds into the perpetual state of victimhood the 10's of thousands of the mouthbreathers on both sides constantly live in and simply garners each shtey, misinformed post or article about it easy clicks. Some of these journos and publications aren't as thick as they make out you know. Leckie, Speirs, The S*n, The Record or whatever, any one of us could write that shite and take the easy buck it brings. The other 40 teams in the league and actual facts and serious takes/discussions matter not a single fcuk to them. 

If Casey had made that challenge on, say, Armstrong of Kilmarnock, it would have stopped being a talking point at about 5pm on Saturday. Only because it involved one of the uglies and their shitey two-way title race has it even been a thing. Fùck them all.

I'm sure that all the ex-pros, pundits etc are able to accept that occasionally one of the OF can have an off-day and when the stars all align for a wee diddy team that means they can string a few passes together and scrape a shock win with a massive slice of luck along with disgraceful game spoiling tactics. But for both teams to get beat in the same weekend simply proves that the whole system is stacked against them and nothing short of a complete root and stem change of our game is required to ensure this never happens again.  

[Swello]

22 minutes ago, JayMFC said:

This has essentially meant that the Well Society Board can make a case to its two representatives on the Executive Board for something, while hoping that that they then make that case on the Society's behalf within the club boardroom. But even if they do, there's no guarantee that the Executive Board will make anything of it.

This is the part that honestly I've always found more difficult to understand from a governance point of view (and it may just be because I'm not very bright and I'm picking it up wrong). The well society must be the only majority shareholder (are we allowed to say owner?) in football history that has minority voting rights on the board of it's own club.

Let's leave aside the argument that the 'Well society would ever become involved in any day to day decisions (which would be a ridiculous state of affairs) - but in the situation where the Executive Board was minded to do something "big" that the Society were dead against (let's say selling Fir Park to a housing developer and sharing NDP for an open ended period) - what safeguards are there that the 71% shareholding could actually be brought to bear? If I understand correctly, it's one person, one vote on the Executive Board, so the Well society reps are always in the minority, far more so if/when new directors are added.

It kind of feels like the whole thing relies on the "good chap principle" that the UK model of governance was based on before the current lot finally trashed it - basically, the folk on the Exec board were good guys like Alan Burrows or Jim McMahon who wouldn't knowingly make a harmful decision, so the 'Well Society can sit in the corner and nod their head and not worry about it - but this obviously becomes a different story when we invite outside investment or the cast changes.

[JayMFC]

7 minutes ago, Swello said:

This is the part that honestly I've always found more difficult to understand from a governance point of view (and it may just be because I'm not very bright and I'm picking it up wrong). The well society must be the only majority shareholder (are we allowed to say owner?) in football history that has minority voting rights on the board of it's own club.

Let's leave aside the argument that the 'Well society would ever become involved in any day to day decisions (which would be a ridiculous state of affairs) - but in the situation where the Executive Board was minded to do something "big" that the Society were dead against (let's say selling Fir Park to a housing developer and sharing NDP for an open ended period) - what safeguards are there that the 71% shareholding could actually be brought to bear? If I understand correctly, it's one person, one vote on the Executive Board, so the Well society reps are always in the minority, far more so if/when new directors are added.

It kind of feels like the whole thing relies on the "good chap principle" that the UK model of governance was based on before the current lot finally trashed it - basically, the folk on the Exec board were good guys like Alan Burrows or Jim McMahon who wouldn't knowingly make a harmful decision, so the 'Well Society can sit in the corner and nod their head and not worry about it - but this obviously becomes a different story when we invite outside investment or the cast changes.

This would be my understanding, aye.

There have been multiple times over the past few years, at least since my involvement, where discussions and even slight progress has been made towards an equal Executive Board. This has never quite been realised, however, much to some frustration. As mentioned before, there has appeared to be a lack of urgency employed around the whole thing from the club's perspective because, essentially, "everyone is a Well Society member anyway". That's partly why there's now a drive to ensure that it is part of any strategy going forward, exactly for the reasons you've outlined - paying a fiver a month (or even not, as the case may be) is not reason enough to have the majority shareholder able to be outvoted going forward.

Allied to that, a part of the Society strategy will hopefully be on identifying and recruiting non-Society representatives for the Executive Board that really allow the club to access the kinds of skills and experience needed in a modern football club. The CEO is obviously a huge appointment, but I think it overshadows sometimes the opportunity that now exists to establish a genuinely capable, driven Executive Board that can take the club forward under fan-ownership.

Edited March 5 by JayMFC

[Swello]

2 minutes ago, JayMFC said:

paying a fiver a month (or even not, as the case may be) is not reason enough to have the majority shareholder able to be outvoted going forwarded.

Fully agree - and the situation where it's a case of "it's great that you're the owners but don't expect to be doing any actual owning" is a very weird thing to have come about.

4 minutes ago, JayMFC said:

Allied to that, a part of the Society strategy will hopefully be on identifying and recruiting non-Society representatives for the Executive Board that really allow the club to access the kinds of skills and experience needed in a modern football club. The CEO is obviously a huge appointment, but I think it overshadows sometimes the opportunity that now exists to establish a genuinely capable, driven Executive Board that can take the club forward under fan-ownership.

This is good to hear as it's exactly what should happen - the Society should be in a position to nominate (or approve) the majority of the BoD and approve the CEO and Chairman appointments. There is nothing that says directors need to come from the Society - just that the right people are nominated by them if that's what they want to do.

[Handsome_Devil]

35 minutes ago, Swello said:

This is the part that honestly I've always found more difficult to understand from a governance point of view (and it may just be because I'm not very bright and I'm picking it up wrong). The well society must be the only majority shareholder (are we allowed to say owner?) in football history that has minority voting rights on the board of it's own club.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure we just lifted our fan ownership model from Germany and the distinction between executive and advisory board is deliberate.

This option involves appointing an executive board of competence to run things daily in accordance with the strategic direction from the Society. The Society board is effectively the supervisory board, elected by the members, who holds the executive board to account, including hiring and firing. There are within that then a couple of variations for how the executive board and management are made up.

You can see the appeal of this tbf, at least in theory. It has pros running the shown and, as they are separate from the Society, is completely accountable with clear governance.

Clearly the Society as owners could choose the alternative run it ourselves model. There are obviously some advantages to that but plenty drawbacks as well and the risk of that ending in petty rivalries, recriminations and disaster is not low.

But it's certainly a discussion worth having and either outcome being transparently decided would be cleaner than the muddle we have now.

[Swello]

2 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

This option involves appointing an executive board of competence to run things daily in accordance with the strategic direction from the Society. The Society board is effectively the supervisory board, elected by the members, who holds the executive board to account, including hiring and firing. There are within that then a couple of variations for how the executive board and management are made up.

Makes perfect sense - but that is not the model we have. We have an executive board who is technically not accountable to anyone other than themselves. They hire, they fire - and they bring a couple of Well Society reps along for the ride.

[Handsome_Devil]

4 minutes ago, Swello said:

Makes perfect sense - but that is not the model we have. We have an executive board who is technically not accountable to anyone other than themselves. They hire, they fire - and they bring a couple of Well Society reps along for the ride.

Yeah, definitely in practice but I'm 99% sure that's not the legal situation. If the majority shareholder puts forward motions to add or remove board members or chair at the AGM, or an EGM, then it's an open goal.

Fwiw on the basis we are a small fan base with limited people, personally I would scrap a level. I'd decide the key functions in the club and make the heads there the management (ie executive) board as part of their roles - off the top of my head CEO, two from sales, marketing and comms (combined on skills/availability/preferences), a sporting director for the football and one liaison from the Society, either elected or appointed but not from the Society board. The CEO would handle finance and the accounts are outsourced anyway, as are legal issues I imagine.

The individuals are responsible for their departments and answer to the CEO day to day, the whole lot answer to the Society board who in turn answer to the members.

[Vietnam91]

In the governance workgroup a few weeks back someone succinctly and perfectly put it that the club as an entity since fans ownership is less a traditional business but now more a local authority. You have the salaried employees doing the day to day and the councillors holding the elected mandate or oversight, direction plus a check and balance. Ultimately the salaried employees should be answerable to anyone who is elected.

Swello and Handsome Devil have nailed it and Jay has confirmed it. I can only speak to my experience of asking the questions and being met with the defensive "all board members are SW members" trope, being done to essentially cease further questioning or a valid explanation of how we got to where we are because ultimately it would require a massaging of history. The "we are fan owned, not fan run" one too was wheeled out. The subtext of this is the chaos that would evolve from everything going to a public vote and/or too many cooks plus a nice sprinkle of the fear of giving the kids the keys to the new car.

While Tom and Derek at present (Flow and Wilson in the past) may have been WS members they have a different set of priorities than the interests of the owners, just mindful of them. I should also say in my time the only thing everyone is agreed upon is getting a result on matchday, how we get there has 4,000 individual strategies. I have never seen any nefarious intent as some on the fringes of the support allege. They just have different motivators and reasoning to their decision making. Not saying that they don't align the vast majority of the time but still we should not rely on that.

The whole Les involvement, dictatorship masquerading as benevolence left things a bit up in the air. But we emerged from it with 71% ownership, two seats on the board to three, so in theory could be overruled. Why in the intervening years this was not redressed is a question for the legacy members/postholders of the WS. The WS has acquiesced too easily to club demands and often seen as an irritation. The culture and relationship needs a reset and that ill only happen with the right senior management team, bought into the idea and ideals.

We were the first senior fan owned club in Scotland and I think, second in the UK. We had to find our feet and often make things up as we went along because there was no playbook or precedent. However, in the intervening years, a number have been established and we have been substantially eclipsed during that time.

The last AGM approved increasing the board to comprise up to 8 members. While learning from the past is essential, it is important we do not repeat the same oversights and errors as we are at the fulcrum of defining the future. 

[MurrayWell]

They still greetin' aye? Glorious.

Motherwell admin continuing to put out Casey content too...