Motherwell FC - A Thread For All Seasons

[thisGRAEME]

Just now, Busta Nut said:

Can anyone give me a positive long term outcome with regards to some out of nowhere foreign investor taking the reigns at a club in Scotland where there is almost no money to be made?

They've got enough money to invest "because it's a good laugh", and want to do so with a club that has a strong identity, and then we can sign a functioning back-line because of it.

Likely this is it? Probably not. If you don't have your suspicions around motives then I'd like to inspect your wallet, tbh.

[Wellin]

29 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

Ha, me too.

But I'd disagree with the last bit, the buyer can come out and say lots much more easily than the seller.

He's said it's fact we'll be asked to give up control which is in contrast to the spirit and impression EB so carefully gave hours before, even if he was vague in his wording. I don't think it's massive in the grand scheme of things either, it's a perfect example of fish and chip paper tomorrow, but it's news today for sure.

The article itself seems to suggest that McCafferty knows as much as the rest of us. Don't know how anyone could conclude that the well society would be asked to give up their majority share from the interview with the potential investor. 

[Handsome_Devil]

14 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

Can anyone give me a positive long term outcome with regards to some out of nowhere foreign investor taking the reigns at a club in Scotland where there is almost no money to be made?

No.

[StAndrew7]

17 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

Can anyone give me a positive long term outcome with regards to some out of nowhere foreign investor taking the reigns at a club in Scotland where there is almost no money to be made?

I can't, no, I'm not sure many of us could. But that doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't one, it just means we're not well versed in running a football club under those terms.

edit: although I assume by "taking the reigns" you mean majority control. That can get in the fucking sea.

Edited April 12 by StAndrew7

[Handsome_Devil]

8 minutes ago, Wellin said:

The article itself seems to suggest that McCafferty knows as much as the rest of us. Don't know how anyone could conclude that the well society would be asked to give up their majority share from the interview with the potential investor. 

"Barmack, a former Netflix vice president, recently entered into an agreement on non-binding heads of terms with the three-man Motherwell board over a deal which would see him become the majority shareholder of the fan-owned club."

That's been presented as a fact known and/or confirmed by GM rather than just the rumour or conjecture the rest of us have. As @StAndrew7says, it's poorly edited that this isn't given context, ie sources within the club/society.

[StAndrew7]

1 minute ago, Handsome_Devil said:

"Barmack, a former Netflix vice president, recently entered into an agreement on non-binding heads of terms with the three-man Motherwell board over a deal which would see him become the majority shareholder of the fan-owned club."

That's been presented as a fact known and/or confirmed by GM rather than just the rumour or conjecture the rest of us have. As @StAndrew7says, it's poorly edited that this isn't given context, ie sources within the club/society.

Aye, all that's missing from that quote is changing "would" to "could" and you have an entirely different statement there.

[Busta Nut]

5 minutes ago, StAndrew7 said:

edit: although I assume by "taking the reigns" you mean majority control. That can get in the fucking sea.

This is another point, Unless the guy is a crackpot there is no reason investors wouldn't want control. Once we see the offer on the table I'll bet it results in majority shareholding for nowhere near enough cash.

[Wellin]

11 minutes ago, Handsome_Devil said:

"Barmack, a former Netflix vice president, recently entered into an agreement on non-binding heads of terms with the three-man Motherwell board over a deal which would see him become the majority shareholder of the fan-owned club."

That's been presented as a fact known and/or confirmed by GM rather than just the rumour or conjecture the rest of us have. As @StAndrew7says, it's poorly edited that this isn't given context, ie sources within the club/society.

He then goes on to say this... Poorly edited sums it up. 

[Wellin]

15 minutes ago, StAndrew7 said:

I can't, no, I'm not sure many of us could. But that doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't one, it just means we're not well versed in running a football club under those terms.

edit: although I assume by "taking the reigns" you mean majority control. That can get in the fucking sea.

The thing is Well Society members will get another vote at some point and may well vote to give an investor majority control after they see the proposed terms. They might not - none of us have a clue what's on offer yet. 

[StAndrew7]

7 minutes ago, Wellin said:

The thing is Well Society members will get another vote at some point and may well vote to give an investor majority control after they see the proposed terms. They might not - none of us have a clue what's on offer yet. 

Indeed, as will private shareholders. The devil, as always, will be in the detail of what proposal/package is put forward in a few weeks (if it gets to that stage, there is the possibility talks will fail, but given the Board's messaging etc. I highly doubt that). Right now the rest is speculation based on what we've seen/read/heard from a variety of sources (informed or otherwise ).

Edited April 12 by StAndrew7

[eliphas]

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

It kind of feels like people are just jumping to conclusions without actually reading what's been said.

Don't believe you. 

[Self-raising Lazarus]

56 minutes ago, Busta Nut said:

Can anyone give me a positive long term outcome with regards to some out of nowhere foreign investor taking the reigns at a club in Scotland where there is almost no money to be made?

Not when the bold les came in no?

[Handsome_Devil]

4 minutes ago, Self-raising Lazarus said:

Not when the bold les came in no?

He was literally born a few* miles from the stadium!

*Taking a liberty with few here but Lanarkshire's not that big.

[eliphas]

The thing is, there are risks with every ownership model right? Just to greater or lesser extents. The three options we've kind of got on the table, in very simple terms are/were:

• Well Society ownership majority
• Outside investor majority
• Outside investor + WS some sort of split. 

Personally, at the moment, and I stress, at the moment..

• Well Society ownership majority - I've got no confidence in the Well Society handling things that well long term given the track record.  However, all the recent moves and new board members etc definitely has me changing my mind on that one. I could be convinced so would take any updated presentation at the time of a decision on merit.
• Outside investor - Not particularly keen on this at all like most, but I would see who it was and take on merit.  I'd need to be heavy convinced. Won;t really be an option as no investor would be accepted that is going to wipe out the WS.
• Outside investor + WS some sort of split -  This tends to interest me. Devil in the detail and all that. But leverage something of outside investors, be that expertise, contacts, capital, or whatever, + retain WS some sort of control....I'm inclined to like that idea to be honest. Need convinced on how it's set up and going to run. But, again, on merit at the time.  

 

[Busta Nut]

9 minutes ago, Self-raising Lazarus said:

Not when the bold les came in no?

I can deny that was decent. 
He however did what he said he would and helped the club transition to fan owned. Different scenario but I agree you got me.

[eliphas]

1 minute ago, Busta Nut said:

I can deny that was decent. 
He however did what he said he would and helped the club transition to fan owned. Different scenario but I agree you got me.

Probably proves you can be a bell-end like he was but also do some good in the world.  I still think he should have gifted us all the money given he was minted and gifted loads to the church in bothwell.

[Swello]

I think if we jump at every poorly chosen word from sportswriters, we're in for a long few months. The reality is that the deal isn't at a point where is it ready to be presented to shareholders and the WS, so at worst, this is a leak/rumour from current discussions - at best it's just poorly phrased when lifting from the BBC interview.

The netflix guy is at perfect liberty to propose to take the majority stake and lay out why that's a good thing and in our long term interests - but the WS (and private shareholders) are equally at liberty to say "thanks but no thanks" - so I'm not really seeing any reason to go off the deep end at this point.

Lastly - if simple profit/return on investment was the guy's main motive - he'd likely be nowhere near us.

[YassinMoutaouakil]

POTY votes out now. I mean, it's Spittal obviously, but I'm not having a Hearts w**k as our player of the year, so it's Theo.

[Wellin]

15 minutes ago, Swello said:

I think if we jump at every poorly chosen word from sportswriters, we're in for a long few months. The reality is that the deal isn't at a point where is it ready to be presented to shareholders and the WS, so at worst, this is a leak/rumour from current discussions - at best it's just poorly phrased when lifting from the BBC interview.

The netflix guy is at perfect liberty to propose to take the majority stake and lay out why that's a good thing and in our long term interests - but the WS (and private shareholders) are equally at liberty to say "thanks but no thanks" - so I'm not really seeing any reason to go off the deep end at this point.

Lastly - if simple profit/return on investment was the guy's main motive - he'd likely be nowhere near us.

I think that article is a bit more than poorly chosen to be fair. Saying that the new investor wants to take majority control when there's nothing to evidence that at this point. 

[Al B]

I take the point that we can't think of ways that an outside investor could make any money from Scottish football, so we should be wary of anyone who thinks they can, but isn't that the point of us trying to look outside the "bubble" so to speak?

Sort of like a "is there anyone out there that can think of ways to generate business income that we haven't thought of, and are you able to fascilitate that."

I hate using Wrexham as an example because it sounds like I'm jumping on some "ooooh we're the new Wrexham" thing which I'm absolutely not, but as it's an easy comparison to make:

No-one involved with Wrexham would have been able to think of a way to increase replica shirt sales. It's extremely unlikely any external businessman from Wrexham would have been able to come up with a way to increase replica shirt sales. Even if you expanded that out to the rest of Wales or even the UK, it's unlikely you'd have found any businessman that could sell a Wrexham shirt to anyone that wasn't in, or from Wrexham. It was effectively a closed market with a finite ceiling.

A businessman/men then comes on board who's, lets face it, an expert in exposure and global marketing who has the means to also fascilitate it, and they had sold nearly 25,000 22/23 replica shirts by the January of that season. That's almost £1.5 million in half a season, and that's only going to increase. Say just for the sake of choosing a completely random return - Reynolds and McElhinney's own company take 25% of all merch sales.

Now again just to clarify I'm not directly comparing us to Wrexham, our situation to theirs, or for a second thinking that that's what's going to happen to us. I'm just saying that for me, the mindset of "no-one's going to be able to make any more money from this than we already are, because we can't think of any other way to generate it", is exactly why we're moving out-with the confines of what we can think of, because there's an absolute f**k-ton of things out there that no-one involved with Motherwell can think of.

All with the caveat that we can say no thanks if it seems they want too much in return? It's hard for me to believe that there's anyone that wouldn't want to explore it to it's fullest given those conditions.

Edited April 12 by Al B