Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[Vietnam91]

We really shouldn't be getting twitchy about teams like St Mirren using our squad from 4 years ago to emulate our league placings/summer tours from 10 years ago which will ultimately lead to a similar financial reckoning that we had 20 years ago. Many clubs will have the same reckoning in the years ahead for their "success" today.

We sought offers of investment not invitations to instigate a takeover. It was supposed to be added means to supplement our turnover, not to cede control.

Many dug deep for a large lump sum to hasten a Boyle exit before a more manageable direct debit was an option and done to realise our own destiny for better for worse. 

With the wrong type of investment accepted we would be potentially facing buying out a rich businessman for the third time within 20 years when we were sold on it being a one time only.

All this talk of 50+1 or 49% is moot and mostly symbolic, the Bois in Block E should be making banners with "MIN 4 EXEC DIRECTORS & CASTING VOTE" as that is much more important.

Edited April 24 by Vietnam91

[StAndrew7]

23 minutes ago, Vietnam91 said:

We sought offers of investment not invitations to instigate a takeover. It was supposed to be added means to supplement our turnover, not to cede control.

Yes, but that's now not the case though, is it? Both investors as discussed in January either wanted full control, or "close to" 50% of the overall shareholding in the club.

If it were the case that we were looking for investment not a takeover (which I absolutely believe was the plan when the video went out initially) they'd both have been told to GTF there and then by the Exec Board. As it happened, it wasn't and was put to the vote.

The Well Society membership subsequently voted that it would consider offers which remove its majority shareholder status. As @MurrayWell said earlier, it's opened the door to low-balling the value of the club and the situation we're now in.

I have no doubt that the Exec Board think they have/had the best interests of the club in mind when they went out to look for investment. Given how things have gone so far, it's rapidly spiraled to a situation where we could potentially lose control/ownership of the club for a relatively low sum of cash.

I agree with your last point; 51/49 is pointless without the casting vote, or at least an overall majority on the newly structured board.

Edited April 24 by StAndrew7

[Muzz1886]

Some of the valuations of the Club on here are absolutely wild.

[thisGRAEME]

A reminder that Kevin Van Veen has 10 appearances with Kilmarnock for 0 (zero) goals, and 1 (one) assist, thus far.

All things considered, given Vale's contribution compared to Van Veen's, we were absolutely correct not to throw money at him. 

[Vietnam91]

46 minutes ago, StAndrew7 said:

Yes, but that's now not the case though, is it?

Well party through the message of the video not fully hitting the brief marked by JM doing a talking head the next day to set things straight and you can't control who or what interested parties bring to the table. But also as alluded by @Busta Nut and others an underlying mistrust that the WS can competently give direction to the club, some "adults" are needed in the form of a proven business(man).

For what you're saying only works if the exec board believe in and are true to the ideals of fan ownership. I don't believe that is the case, maybe they were but not now. The Aussie bid appears to have been sat on the table for far longer than it should have especially when its contents were so unpalatable. Low ball offers were already on the table before the WS vote, not as a result of it.

The video was made because JM at his own admission dropped the ball. With an exit strategy planned the video was a sticky plaster fix. Driven by not empowering the society or previously implementing improvements in the standard commercial/hospitality/ticketing/advertising revenue streams. Prior to October 2023 it was weakened and hobbled during and in the aftermath of Les moving on for expediency and very much by design. There is a massive disconnect by the architects of that bad faith that they engineered it as thus and it became a self fulfilling prophecy of stagnancy, poor transparency and disconnect from its membership and not a great track record to trade on.

As for the no binding vote, yes it stymied the WS and we are were are. I initially voted yes thinking about how what has happened at Wrexham has transformed them and in all likelihood the fans will get the club back or bobbing along in the championship/div 1 at worst opposed to a slow death spiral in the conference. I didn't want to rule out something like that as its the gold standard of football club investment only vying with the Anderson involvement at Hearts. I changed my vote to no when I actually thought it through and what it meant for us.

If or when the current offer on the table sees light, what we see will have been tweaked numerous times, we need to ask ourselves what it must have been like back in January in its first draft.

Edited April 24 by Vietnam91

[well fan for life]

39 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

A reminder that Kevin Van Veen has 10 appearances with Kilmarnock for 0 (zero) goals, and 1 (one) assist, thus far.

All things considered, given Vale's contribution compared to Van Veen's, we were absolutely correct not to throw money at him. 

Vale's been great value as a January signing. For all we were worried big time about Mika going back to Arsenal I'd say Vale & Bair have more than filled that void. Would love to see him and Gent stick around next season but nae doubt they'll be off on loan elsewhere. 

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

40 minutes ago, thisGRAEME said:

A reminder that Kevin Van Veen has 10 appearances with Kilmarnock for 0 (zero) goals, and 1 (one) assist, thus far.

All things considered, given Vale's contribution compared to Van Veen's, we were absolutely correct not to throw money at him. 

I know some of our January signings haven't contributed much - Elliot, Montgomery and the lad from Sheff Utd for very varying reasons - but our squad on a whole has looked much stronger since the window.

Some people were advocating us blowing most, if not all of the budget on Van Veen and continuing with our bench from the Alloa game of Barry Maguire and a bunch of weans. I'm very glad we didn't.

I'd probably say in our current financial model, there are very few, if any players I would push the boat out for. 

That said, it's funny how Kilmarnock did splash out on him, yet his anonymity hasn't really affected them adversely. It's almost like they just signed him to stop St. Mirren getting him.

[thisGRAEME]

4 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

very varying reasons

[Swello]

8 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

That said, it's funny how Kilmarnock did splash out on him, yet his anonymity hasn't really affected them adversely. It's almost like they just signed him to stop St. Mirren getting him.

I can only assume that was it.

It will be a more interesting debate in the summer if/when he gets paid off by Groningen and is floating about looking for a club with his stock way lower than it was (I'd still be in the "no" camp BTW).

[Allroy for Prez]

1 hour ago, Swello said:

I can only assume that was it.

It will be a more interesting debate in the summer if/when he gets paid off by Groningen and is floating about looking for a club with his stock way lower than it was (I'd still be in the "no" camp BTW).

Agreed, but I’d definitely take Moult back.  

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

Van Veen was absolutely outrageous towards the end of last season and as a result, rightly deserves to be mentioned up there with our best strikers of recent times. I do think us parting ways this summer was a good thing though, him getting a good contract and us getting a good fee for him at 32. He was never going to recreate last season - his league tally was 2.5x his best ever in the lower leagues in England. 

Like Van Veen, the Moult thing has been done to death. Hindsight is obviously a wonderful thing and you can look back and say he would have been a better option than Obika, Shaw and Wilkinson - but aside from a spell in the autumn, goals from our strikers haven't really been a problem. I'd have welcomed him back more if he was good in the middle of a back three.

[well fan for life]

12 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

Van Veen was absolutely outrageous towards the end of last season and as a result, rightly deserves to be mentioned up there with our best strikers of recent times. I do think us parting ways this summer was a good thing though, him getting a good contract and us getting a good fee for him at 32. He was never going to recreate last season - his league tally was 2.5x his best ever in the lower leagues in England. 

Like Van Veen, the Moult thing has been done to death. Hindsight is obviously a wonderful thing and you can look back and say he would have been a better option than Obika, Shaw and Wilkinson - but aside from a spell in the autumn, goals from our strikers haven't really been a problem. I'd have welcomed him back more if he was good in the middle of a back three.

Never mind signing another striker. If we'd signed one centre back that wasn't a fucking idiot we'd have cantered this season. The number of shocking individual errors we've lost goals to this season has been almost laughable.

[wellfan919191]

Is there any truth in these Dylan Easton rumours? I know some guy in twitter has been posting about it but doesn't seem very trustworthy with transfers and not heard anything from elsewhere.

[capt_oats]

4 minutes ago, wellfan919191 said:

Is there any truth in these Dylan Easton rumours? I know some guy in twitter has been posting about it but doesn't seem very trustworthy with transfers and not heard anything from elsewhere.

AFAIK the rumours came from here and it wasn't even a rumour. The bold @Handsome_Devil mentioned they'd heard we'd signed a player from the Rovers on a PCA last week and there was a subsequent bout of speculation around which players of theirs are OOC.

Since then it seems to have been taken as being fact with mentions on Twitter and Steelmen.

[rowsdower]

Yep, that rumour was born on this here thread. Surprised it hasn't made the daily record yet.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

Sturm Graz can go top of their league tonight. Mika-stealing aside, I wonder if that's one of the addons we had for Johnston?

[well fan for life]

33 minutes ago, YassinMoutaouakil said:

Sturm Graz can go top of their league tonight. Mika-stealing aside, I wonder if that's one of the addons we had for Johnston?

Doubt it. He was out of contract so we were due whatever compensation amounts to these days.

We've fumbled a lot of things in the last few years but that's got to be the worst of them.

[capt_oats]

4 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

Doubt it. He was out of contract so we were due whatever compensation amounts to these days.

We've fumbled a lot of things in the last few years but that's got to be the worst of them.

There's an element of "well, of course they'd say that" but at the last AGM (clearly not the one where Hammell told everyone he was confident Johnston would sign a new contract despite having bounced him out to Cove Rangers on loan because we ended up with SOD and McGinn on the books by mistake) they pretty much said that they made offers to keep him but it was made clear to them that Johnston wanted to try his luck abroad. Basically, the implication was "well, what can you do - if he doesn't want to sign the contract".

I mean, everything up to the point where we actually started playing him with 6 months left on his deal and realising he was actually really good? Massive fumble.

[joewarkfanclub]

8 hours ago, Vietnam91 said:

All this talk of 50+1 or 49% is moot and mostly symbolic, the Bois in Block E should be making banners with "MIN 4 EXEC DIRECTORS & CASTING VOTE" as that is much more important.

I hadnt actually thought about this before. But you are 100% right.

We own the club right now, but what actual control can we exert?

That needs to be rectified

[Handsome_Devil]

2 minutes ago, joewarkfanclub said:

I hadnt actually thought about this before. But you are 100% right.

We own the club right now, but what actual control can we exert?

That needs to be rectified

What kind of control do you want to exert? 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against a society majority on the board but I think the model where the executive are basically the heads of department, accountable to the Society, is a much more solid basis to run things.

The fans through the Society should set the very strategic, long-term vision but relying on them to actually implement it on an executive level... different gravy.