Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[welldaft]

42 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

He's said about 10,000 words on this forum now and I've still never seen an explanation for why the club needs carved up into the % ownership he wants it to be?

To be harsh as f**k, and unfair, but so far it looks like you're giving up fan ownership of your football club so a techbro can experiment with AI at a professional sports level. Again though, I'm an outsider so don't know Motherwells operation like you.

In his defence he is trying to address legitimate questions from fans on this forum.  Quite in-depth questions. I would be more concerned if he answered those with only a few hundred words.

At the moment no one has agreed to anything and based on the current offer are unlikely to do so. It may well happen, it may not. But once the dust settles I think the whole debate / exchange has actually been quite healthy and positive in terms of identifying possible ways forward. 

[capt_oats]

11 minutes ago, Wellin said:

I have. On other forums and elsewhere online. There are fans who think the way we operate just now works well for us. I'm not trying to suggest that's the majority view - just that there are fans who don't think we need outside investment 

I agree with the point that it's probably going to be tough to find someone who wants to inject money into the club without them wanting to take control. 

Clearly I can't say what you have/haven't seen or how you've interpreted that and I agree that there's a strong "local club for local people" energy to some folk online that is more than a bit one-eyed but to back up @Swello's post I think there's a difference between people pointing out that how we operate just now works well for us (it does - demonstrably so or at least it has worked until the Bowling Club have been let loose on things post-Burrows/Russell) as a rebuttal to the "fAn oWnERsHip dOeSN'T wOrK!!" and "all investment is good investment" crowd who'd sell us out to whatever Human Rights abusers would drop us gold and equating that with being flat out against outside investment.

Tbh, it still remains the case that it's a bad idea to give up a model that has been broadly successful (and profitable) and take an objectively BAD deal because some folk didn't get a reply to their emails.

A bad deal is still a bad deal. And this is a bad deal.

[Neil86]

How much did the Well society bring in last year? Are Caley braves being used as an example because they brought in more than us? if so, there must be a middle ground where we can sell the community stuff and the well society stuff.

For me personally, maybe for others, it feels like all the investement talk has kicked the well society into life, which can only be a good thing, it kind of felt like things had all went a wee bit stale.

I am most likely going to be proven so so wrong here, As I don't take a huge amount of notice in what they do to raise money, is it a case of occasionally sticking folk outside the stands with buckets, the odd fun day? I know there was the match at Fir park not long ago for fans, which is a cracking idea btw so fair play to whoever came up with that but the rest is a bit amateurish. 

I pay monthly, and should probably contribute more, but for whatever reason, don't, which is probably linked to my point of things going stale. I think once all this is over, however it pans out, either EB & TWS push forward together, or TWS kick on. 

 

[RandomGuy.]

9 minutes ago, welldaft said:

In his defence he is trying to address legitimate questions from fans on this forum.  Quite in-depth questions. I would be more concerned if he answered those with only a few hundred words.

At the moment no one has agreed to anything and based on the current offer are unlikely to do so. It may well happen, it may not. But once the dust settles I think the whole debate / exchange has actually been quite healthy and positive in terms of identifying possible ways forward. 

It's the simplest, and most important, question to answer though? Being able to field multi-paragraph answers on how you'll use AI to sell more tickets is easy and enjoyable when it means nobodies asking why you want to end fan ownership to achieve that.

It's really fucking easy to sound innovative and forward thinking and its surprising so many folk are being sucked in by whats effectively just business jargon. Presumably some folk will be buzzing in 12 months when you get told you can get a discount on season tickets by using Bitcoin.

[Wellin]

6 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

How much did the Well society bring in last year? Are Caley braves being used as an example because they brought in more than us? if so, there must be a middle ground where we can sell the community stuff and the well society stuff.

For me personally, maybe for others, it feels like all the investement talk has kicked the well society into life, which can only be a good thing, it kind of felt like things had all went a wee bit stale.

I am most likely going to be proven so so wrong here, As I don't take a huge amount of notice in what they do to raise money, is it a case of occasionally sticking folk outside the stands with buckets, the odd fun day? I know there was the match at Fir park not long ago for fans, which is a cracking idea btw so fair play to whoever came up with that but the rest is a bit amateurish. 

I pay monthly, and should probably contribute more, but for whatever reason, don't, which is probably linked to my point of things going stale. I think once all this is over, however it pans out, either EB & TWS push forward together, or TWS kick on. 

 

How would you say this has kicked the well society into life? 

[Al B]

1 hour ago, Wellin said:

Im a Well Society member and have been for a long time. I personally think that Motherwell needs outside investment but other fans don't agree.

There are fans who think the current way we operate - selling on our best assets works for us. That isn't me saying that I'm going to vote yes to this but I think the club is stagnating (again other fans won't agree) and there's obviously issues with the way we are being run (the Board). Think the events of this week have just emphasised that. 

I do believe in fan ownership. I'm just not sure we have enough fans to sustain it (think that's obviously the biggest issue) and I don't think it's working as well as it might. 

 

I'm trying to refrain from commenting very much on the investment topic, as it's the kind of thing that grows arms and legs and before you know it you're spending your weekend tied to a football forum, but I just wanted to make one wee comment on this.

I appreciate that you're looking for investment as a way of helping us move away from selling our best assets as a part of our business model.

I think you'd be in for a massive shock regardless of what type of investment happens. Even if we had the fantasy scenario (as in, never going to happen) of a guardian angel arriving who put a guaranteed £1m into the club every season, didn't look for it to be paid back, and wasn't looking for any ownership at all. A literal £1m per season gift.....we would still be looking to develop talent to move them on, and we would still be trying to attract players with the promise of a shop window to a bigger move.

A shoe shop isn't going to be looking for investment that allows them to keep all of their shoes and not have to sell them.

And it's easy to say "we're a football club, not a footballer shop", but in reality, the sporting competition aspect and any associated prize money is only one part of modern football. For *almost* every club at *almost* every level, a large part of their business model is as a literal footballer shop, and the matches are our adverts. No amount of investment that Motherwell could ever possibly attract, is going to change that.

A comparison would be that, it used to be the case where bands and musicians would make their money from putting music out, and playing live. In addition they would also sell some merch that effectively advertised their band with the goal of getting their name out there, selling more music to more people, and get more people attending shows. Nowadays that's completely reversed and other than at the *elite* level, musicians don't make any money whatsoever from music, and gigging/touring actually costs them money. They now make the majority of their income from merch. Bands aren't professional musicians who use merch as advertising anymore, they are clothing companies who use music to advertise their brand. It's very sad, but it's just the way it is.

Football clubs at our level (and the level we'd still be at even with a £1m per year no-strings-attached gift), are merch companies and footballer development companies, who use the matches as adverts.

I'd suggest tempering your judgement on whether a deal is good, bad or otherwise, on all the other things it offers, because even after a good deal for Motherwell Football Club, we're still going to be actively trying to sell Lennon Miller, David Turnbull, Alan Campbell etc, and still trying to find a Theo Bair, A Kevin Van Veen, that we can develop and then sell on.

Edited June 14 by Al B

[Neil86]

21 minutes ago, Wellin said:

How would you say this has kicked the well society into life? 

Good question, cause I can't actually give you any examples. I suppose it's just a feeling that people are being much more vocal in support of TWS, and I guess with the statement they put out at the start of the week they have to be a lot more proactive. 

[Wellin]

2 minutes ago, Al B said:

I'm trying to refrain from commenting very much on the investment topic, as it's the kind of thing that grows arms and legs and before you know it you're spending your weekend tied to a football forum, but I just wanted to make one wee comment on this.

I appreciate that you're looking for investment as a way of helping us move away from selling our best assets as a part of our business model.

I think you'd be in for a massive shock regardless of what type of investment happens. Even if we had the fantasy scenario (as in, never going to happen) of a guardian angel arriving who put a guaranteed £1m into the club every season, didn't look for it to be paid back, and wasn't looking for any ownership at all. A literal £1m per season gift.....we would still be looking to develop talent to move them on, and we would still be trying to attract players with the promise of a shop window to a bigger move.

A shoe shop isn't going to be looking for investment that allows them to keep all of their shoes and not have to sell them.

And it's easy to say "we're a football club, not a footballer shop", but in reality, the sporting competition aspect and any associated prize money is only one part or modern football. For *almost* every club at *almost* every level, a large part of their business model is as a literal footballer shop, and the matches are our adverts. No amount of investment that Motherwell could ever possibly attract, is going to change that.

A comparison would be that, it used to be the case where bands and musicians would make their money from putting music out, and paying live. In addition they would also sell some merch that effectively advertised their band with the goal of selling more music to more people. Nowadays that's completely reversed and other than at the *elite* level, musicians don't make any money whatsoever from music, and gigging/touring actually costs them money. They now make the majority of their income from merch. Bands aren't professional musicians who use merch as advertising anymore, they are clothing companies who use music to advertise their brand. It's very sad, but it's just the way it is.

Football clubs at our level (and the level we'd still be at even with a £1m per year no-strings-attached gift), are merch companies and footballer development companies, who use the matches as adverts.

I'd suggest tempering your judgement on whether a deal is good, bad or otherwise, on all the other things it offers, because even after a good deal for Motherwell Football Club, we're still going to be actively trying to sell Lennon Miller, David Turnbull, Alan Campbell etc, and still trying to find a Theo Bair, A Kevin Van Veen, that we can develop and then sell on.

I don't expect that our best assets aren't sold on ever  - just that I think that when people say we don't need investment we have Lennon Miller - what happens in a season when we don't have a player worth a million plus to sell on? I don't have an issue with our assets being sold on - I just think that we don't always get what our players are worth.

But in some ways that's to be expected given who we are, where we sit in the league and the fact that we often aren't in a position to knock back offers and folk making the offers know it. 

I'm also aware that we are a selling club and always have been and that we develop youth well. 

Im not an investment at all costs fan either. The club put out a call for investment for whatever reason and we are where we are. 

I also think that if there isn't going to be a cash injection of any kind then fans on social media who think everything about Motherwell is shit (and they are out there), maybe need to be a bit more tolerant of the constraints we operate under. 

[capt_oats]

Just now, Neil86 said:

Good question, cause I can't actually give you any examples. I suppose it's just a feeling that people are being much more vocal in support of TWS, and I guess with the statement they put out at the start of the week they have to be a lot more proactive. 

See, I'm not sure how much of that is down to the "investment" offer and the existential threat that has brought kicking them into life and more it's simply a case that the refreshed board have a majority involved who actively want to make fan ownership work.

There's a more than fair chance that we'd have seen this renewed impetus regardless although the question remains to what extent they'd have been stymied by those who evidently had a conflict of interest in their position on the Executive Board.

[welldaft]

36 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

It's the simplest, and most important, question to answer though? Being able to field multi-paragraph answers on how you'll use AI to sell more tickets is easy and enjoyable when it means nobodies asking why you want to end fan ownership to achieve that.

It's really fucking easy to sound innovative and forward thinking and its surprising so many folk are being sucked in by whats effectively just business jargon. Presumably some folk will be buzzing in 12 months when you get told you can get a discount on season tickets by using Bitcoin.

It is widely accepted that the current deal will not get through. As it is this forum probably more than anything has made EB realise the strength of feeling against the current proposal. Hence his statement that he will endeavour to revise certain elements and put forward a more compelling proposal on the table. Whether that is enough to sway more than 50% of WS to vote in favour only time will tell.

So in that regard this forum and the fans on here have done an admirable job. I am not saying it is only this forum by the way.

I know you are being glib or at least I hope you are . I am not taken in by all the business jargon and I see it for what it is.

However I have already said that Motherwell FC and the Well Society have for many years done very little to investigate many or any innovative ways and new ideas to raise revenue so that we can help plug the finance gap should we have a poor season etc. Again if nothing else this has served to give the WS a kick up the backside and to then put forward their own proposal which will be interesting to view and consider. 

So no one least of all myself is saying EB is some kind of saviour. But at least he would come in with a fresh pair of eyes and ones not limited with the baggage of a background in Scottish football. Being honest I look at the success or otherwise that Dave Cormack has achieved at Aberdeen with a lot more money available and that is not a good case study at all. So of course I have my concerns and have made it clear on here. What is clear is the status quo will not help Motherwell FC move forward and stay a top flight club. 

Edited June 14 by welldaft

[Wellin]

3 minutes ago, Neil86 said:

Good question, cause I can't actually give you any examples. I suppose it's just a feeling that people are being much more vocal in support of TWS, and I guess with the statement they put out at the start of the week they have to be a lot more proactive. 

. Yeah. I think this week has shown that there's a lot of stuff within the club for whatever reason needs fixed. Mfc board level in particular. I think fans are being short changed. 

[Wellin]

2 minutes ago, welldaft said:

It is widely accepted that the current deal will not get through. As it is this forum probably more than anything has made EB realise the strength of feeling against the current proposal. Hence his statement that he will endeavour to revise certain elements and put forward a more compelling proposal on the table. Whether that is enough to sway more than 50% of WS to vote in favour only time will tell.

So in that regard this forum and the fans on here have done an admirable job. I am not saying it is only this forum by the way.

I know you are being glib or at least I hope you are . I am not taken in by all the business jargon and I see it for what it is.

However I have already said that Motherwell FC and the Well Society have for many years done very little to investigate many or nay innovative ways and new ideas to raise revenue so that we can help plug the finance gap should we have a poor season etc. Again if nothing else this has served to give the WS a kick up the backside and to then put forward their own proposal which will be interesting to view and consider. 

So no one least of all myself is saying EB is some kind of saviour. But at least he would come in with a fresh pair of eyes and ones not limited with the baggage of a background in Scottish football. Being honest I look at the success or otherwise that Dave Cormack has achieved at Aberdeen with a lot more money available and that is not a good case study at all. So of course I have my concerns and have made it clear on here. What is clear is the status quo will not help Motherwell FC move forward and stay a top flight club. 

I can't agree more with this. The status quo really can't continue. 

[Al B]

12 minutes ago, welldaft said:

It is widely accepted that the current deal will not get through.

I'm not massively convinced. Along the lines of the echo-chamber nature of this forum (or any forum), when you're a regular poster/reader I think it's easy to be caught up in the thought that almost all Motherwell fans would absolutely love a Pakora shop at Fir Park. In reality though, if you actually asked all Motherwell fans, then the vast majority wouldn't even know what you were talking about, and wouldn't have the first clue who Natalie Dormer was if she delivered their milk one morning.

I'd say a reflection of that is the amount of people who have only had their "wait, hang on..." moment from reading posters breaking the deal down on here. If they hadn't come on here then they wouldn't have had that moment and would still quite like the sound of it. Add that to the amount of people who, for whatever reason, think it's a really good deal/idea....then I think that's a significant number of Motherwell fans.

Edited June 14 by Al B

[Swello]

1 minute ago, Al B said:

I'm not massively convinced.

Nor me. There's a thing that a lot of politicians rely on - what is/was called "low information voters" (I hate the term) who vote a certain way based on feels or simple slogan stuff (Brexit and MAGA are great recent examples). I think a lot of folk with a vote on this could just think "2 million quid, that'll do" and have no idea of all the stuff that is talked about on here (or not really care about it).

I still think the Pakora hut is important though.

[welldaft]

3 minutes ago, Al B said:

I'm not massively convinced. Along the lines of the echo-chamber nature of this forum (or any forum), when you're a regular poster/reader I think it's easy to be caught up in the thought that almost all Motherwell fans would absolutely love a Pakora shop at Fir Park. In reality though, if you actually asked all Motherwell fans, then the vast majority wouldn't even know what you were talking about, and wouldn't have the first clue who Natalie Dormer was if she delivered their milk one morning.

I'd say a reflection of that is the amount of people who have only had their "wait, hang on..." moment from reading posters breaking the deal down on here. If they hadn't come on here then they wouldn't have had that moment and would still quite like the sound of it. Add that to the amount of people who, for whatever reason, think it's a really good deal/idea....then I think that's a significant number of Motherwell fans.

I understand. It may well have been a lot closer than expected for the reasons you mention.

The good news however (hopefully) is the original deal looks to be dead in the water and a new deal being worked on as we speak. So again if nothing else this forum and other voices have helped influence this. 

[capt_oats]

Johnny Koutroumbis (with a footnote about Stuparević).

The way Burns is talking it sounds like these are effectively done.

[Neil86]

13 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

See, I'm not sure how much of that is down to the "investment" offer and the existential threat that has brought kicking them into life and more it's simply a case that the refreshed board have a majority involved who actively want to make fan ownership work.

There's a more than fair chance that we'd have seen this renewed impetus regardless although the question remains to what extent they'd have been stymied by those who evidently had a conflict of interest in their position on the Executive Board.

That is almost certainly playing a part in it, even towards the end of last season, I did notice a bit more happening on match days. EB makes a good point about making it more of a day out as opposed to turn up for the game and bolt, That is something that shouldn't be too difficult even at the most basic level. But we still need to see a huge deal more done.

Fwiw, I like EB's ideas. The actual investment side of things is a bit over my head (all the EV chat), but at a basic level I do get it. 

Fan ownership is wonderful, but if we vote against the investment, everyone from board level, to TWS, to fan has to really chip in in anyway possible to kick things on, otherwise it all risks becoming stale again.

I keep seeing talk of extra guaranteed income from europe etc, is this not the last season of guaranteed group stage football?

i'm still very open minded about it all, don't like the financial side of the deal, but open to the ideas behind it. Interesting to see the new proposal.

 

[StAndrew7]

2 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Johnny Koutroumbis (with a footnote about Stuparević).

The way Burns is talking it sounds like these are effectively done.

Aye he's mentioned Koutroumbis a few times now, I doubt he'd put his name to either if they weren't going to happen.

Quite pleased with our business so far. Add these two and another attacking mid and a left wing back I think a decent job is being done.

Would love to get a winger or two in to give us different options formation wise but that might be wishful thinking.

Edited June 14 by StAndrew7

[one m in Motherwell]

2 hours ago, Wellin said:

Don't we. 

What, McMahon, Feeley and co?  No, they have a patrician sense of what is best for the club - the epitome of the 'blazers'.  This whole process has shown them up quite a bit.

[Wellin]

2 minutes ago, one m in Motherwell said:

What, McMahon, Feeley and co?  No, they have a patrician sense of what is best for the club - the epitome of the 'blazers'.  This whole process has shown them up quite a bit.

I was agreeing with you