Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[steelmen]

Just now, capt_oats said:

Thanks Grant.

I realise I’m very much preaching to the choir here but it seems absolutely nuts to me that the proposal revealed this morning would have been presented to the Executive Board and it simply be taken at face value with zero questions asked.

I do think that McMahon is desperate here. He wanted, and might have paid for, the video, got to make that look a success.

He wants to stand down, and on the face of it has done nothing to facilitate it. EB has come in with the least worst proposal with a few words of I will work with the society and he's approved it. This allows him to walk away safe in the knowledge he has left the club in a proper businessman's hands.

[rowsdower]

9 minutes ago, steelmen said:

I do think that McMahon is desperate here. He wanted, and might have paid for, the video, got to make that look a success.

He wants to stand down, and on the face of it has done nothing to facilitate it. EB has come in with the least worst proposal with a few words of I will work with the society and he's approved it. This allows him to walk away safe in the knowledge he has left the club in a proper businessman's hands.

The only real urgency here is McMahon's insistence on getting this done before he leaves, and his need for a "legacy" could tear the club apart.

Like said above, this is deemed as the "least worst" proposal, and it is terrifying that some are fine with it in that regard, when there is no genuine pressure for the club to accept any terms for investment.

Imagine three folk rocked up to your door and said they wanted to buy your house, with the best offer being half the market value, but you had to redecorate and build a conservatory. Then Imagine trying to persuade your landlord to accept the offer.

Also no surprise that this offer is fine with the contrarian racists in our support.

Edited Friday at 14:42 by rowsdower

['WellDel]

1 hour ago, Busta Nut said:

That bloke is a moron.

Aye, and Davie boy there is going to vote for his proposal. 

[SteelyDosser]

I would have been interested in seeing what the rejected offers for investment were.

If not to compare to what this shambles is. They must be worth a laugh surely?

[Handsome_Devil]

2 minutes ago, rowsdower said:

The only real urgency here is McMahon's insistence on getting this done before he leaves, and his need for a "legacy" could tear the club apart.

I think this is the thing which - for me anyway - makes it more personal than it should be. If we'd gone through a proper process and this came to a vote, some people would be for or against but I think (hope, at least) it would be done on good terms and the result respected, not just accepted, in the sense the the losers wouldn't storm off in a huff.

Instead there's the feeling that it has been handled so badly and rushed through purely to suit one man's agenda. That creates resentment and removes legitimacy from the whole process...if the Society wins, a fair few folk will be unhappy which is bad enough but if Barmack wins, the circumstances around the vote mean his plans as they stand in paper are dead by the next morning.

McMahon, Weir, Dickie and Feely - to a greater or lesser extent the apparent architects of this - have all devoted years to the club and/or society. Even if I didn't always agree with them, or people didn't get on with them personally, they deserved clapped out for their service rather than now being chased with pitchforks for the utter shitshow they've left as a farewell gift. 

[Swello]

"Beware an old man in a hurry" was a quote from the original House of Cards that I always liked...

['WellDel]

4 minutes ago, Swello said:

"Beware an old man in a hurry" was a quote from the original House of Cards that I always liked...

"Because he's probably leaving a trail of shite in his wake"?

[joewarkfanclub]

15 minutes ago, Swello said:

"Beware an old man in a hurry" was a quote from the original House of Cards that I always liked...

"You may say that. I couldnt possibly comment......"

[Doctor Manhattan]

20 minutes ago, SteelyDosser said:

I would have been interested in seeing what the rejected offers for investment were.

If not to compare to what this shambles is. They must be worth a laugh surely?

With hindsight they might actually have been relatively good, just not in the near-vacuum that pervades the space between Jim McMahon's ears. I guess we'll never know.

40 minutes ago, steelmen said:

I do think that McMahon is desperate here. He wanted, and might have paid for, the video, got to make that look a success.

On first sight I pegged the video as amateur, embarrassing, and basically shambolic, and was worried that it sent the wrong message and would attract vultures. I wish I'd used that same psychic insight to buy a Euromillions ticket that day, because then none of would be in this position now.

[Wellwatcher]

As a WS member I attended the first Governance workstream meeting, but based on the people around the table felt that I wasn't qualified to make a meaningful contribution so didn't attend any further meetings. It was obvious that governance was a mess with a majority shareholder having no meaningful influence in the running of the club. This lack of influence was previously reinforced by Burrows stating we were fan owned not fan run. 

I have looked at both business plans and it looks like the WS version is local based with the Wild Sheep version more international. Surely there must be a middle ground for Wild Sheeps international ambitions to be integrated into the Well Societies more local plan. Ideas like spending £100k on an app need binned but there must be ideas in Wild Sheeps proposal that can be integrated? 

 

[David1979]

4 minutes ago, Wellwatcher said:

I have looked at both business plans and it looks like the WS version is local based with the Wild Sheep version more international.

Not true. Look at the strategic investment section of the Society plan. It's not far off what Erik is proposing, with the main difference being that we don't need to give up half the club and the boardroom to get it.

[redstarcvedza]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

As I’ve said before my issue with *all this* (waves generally) has been the Executive Board. That hasn’t changed.

I’ve had my doubts re: due diligence but off the back of the Barmack reveal and the responses from the likes of @thisGRAEME, @GrantRussell et al on Twitter a question that’s only just occurred to me is whether or not The Executive Board have actually sought any advice about these aspects that seem key to Barmak’s plan (IIRC he mentioned he had presented a deck to them early on) or have they simply looked at it and thought “Yeah, an app that no one will use seems a great idea” and do they genuinely not realise they had a market leading CRM system installed two years ago?!

Dunno, I’d have thought second opinions in this area would have been pretty easy to come by.

The deal and its myriad of terms to hamstring/destroy the Well Society bears the hallmarks of a collusion between the EB and EB as opposed to a negotiation. Mr.Barnack would not believe his luck in finding an executive board so besotted with the Well Society it would put the future of the football club at risk with what can only be described as a dark and devious litany of unpalatable and unpleasant terms 

[Doctor Manhattan]

4 minutes ago, David1979 said:

Look at the strategic investment section of the Society plan. It's not far off what Erik is proposing, with the main difference being that we don't need to give up half the club and the boardroom to get it.

Over and over again, THIS.

[crazylegsjoe_mfc]

1 hour ago, joewarkfanclub said:

It has become increasingly obvious throughout this fiasco that the "real barrier" to succesful fan ownership of Motherwell FC has been the current Executive Board.

This is exactly it for me.

• Structural work needing done twice
• Over a year without a proper CEO
• Having three managers and their assistants on the payroll at the same time
• Paying transfer fees and having wage costs and not delivering on the pitch in accordance with them

That probably lists some of our biggest financial / operational struggles of the recent past (I may have missed some prominent ones that others can add). The responsibility for them, largely, lies at the Executive Board running the club on a day-to-day basis, rather than The Well Society, if you ask me.

Edited Friday at 15:56 by crazylegsjoe_mfc

[Doctor Manhattan]

2 minutes ago, crazylegsjoe_mfc said:

This is exactly it for me.

• Structural work needing done twice
• Over a year without a proper CEO
• Having three managers and their assistants on the payroll at the same time
• Paying transfer fees and having wage costs and not delivering on the pitch in accordance with them

That probably lists some of our biggest financial / operational struggles of the recent past (I may have missed some prominent ones that others can add). The responsibility for them, largely, lies at the Executive Board running the club on a day-to-day basis, rather than The Well Society, if you ask me.

Any one of these things is possible at any time, any two with particularly bad luck. In isolation, none of them are necessarily the Board's "fault", as opposed to "responsibility".

All four at once starts to raise warning flags.

[capt_oats]

Given the shitshow that they've caused it's quite fitting that the Executive Board missed the deadline for this.

[Ceiling Granny]

There are honestly, from a skim read, so many red flags in that document it’s not even funny. I can’t actually believe people are thinking of voting for it.  I don’t know why people cannot grasp the concept that (a) 300k a year is not a lot of money, (b) we’re not going to become a global brand and (c) I have f**k all desire to support a global brand.  
 

I can’t think of anything else constructive to add that’s not already been said.  

[Jim McLean's Ghost]

8 hours ago, Vietnam91 said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Holden

Two years in, buyback enacted:

Green ("Investments" - lot of poetic justice here, 200k of it is a levy) = £1m

Blue (Costs) = £2.81m

Red (Income "projected") = £0.5m

Anyone else see not a £1.31m hole here? If the WS proposal document magicked up money for spending way above revenue streams they'd be pilloried.

So £1.31m in the red, no income raised by the WS for 2 years to contribute the mandated amount, £600k needed to ensure Erik's payments are covered and £30k for his trouble.

Can we get fucking serious, please for the love God!!!!!!

I've not had time to dig into Barmack's numbers but it is very funny that all the number are round figures except the "Integrated Sponsorship Development Costs" which have an increasing number and is clearly a means of Barmack extracting money from the club. Integrating the club's money back into his pocket.

 

£377K in 6 years. And it will probably increase more every year after.

[Swello]

8 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Given the shitshow that they've caused it's quite fitting that the Executive Board missed the deadline for this.

Possibly illustrating how reactive the EB plan that we saw today really was...

 

[redstarcvedza]

3 minutes ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

I've not had time to dig into Barmack's numbers but it is very funny that all the number are round figures except the "Integrated Sponsorship Development Costs" which have an increasing number and is clearly a means of Barmack extracting money from the club. Integrating the club's money back into his pocket.

 

£377K in 6 years. And it will probably increase more every year after.

Exactly. See Rangers for many examples of extraction of cash from the club for the provision of "services"