Next to go?

[GallowayBlue]

17 minutes ago, GordonS said:

According to their very good page with player profiles, of the 28 current, on-loan and departed players listed only one has a mention of having played for the SOS team - goalkeeper Andrew Downie, who moved up last October. https://stranraerfc.org/squad/ 

A player who was backup to the backup goalie and only on the bench as a cost cutting measure due to an unexpected departure, if my reading of the situation is correct.

Scrap it.

Edited March 24 by GallowayBlue

[Mattmc]

3 hours ago, GallowayBlue said:

All hypothetical, but I have often wondered if the WoSFL would be the option the club would try to pursue.

The idea of Stranraer FC playing in the SoSFL is unthinkable to me.

If that scenario ever did come to pass, the people that said they would support the team if locals played would have to find a new excuse for not supporting them.

Don’t see why we couldn’t go to the West. 
Threave Rovers moved to the West in recent years, all be it having to start at the bottom. 

Personally would like to see the West and the South amalgamate, majority of the South would find themselves in the lover reaches but, would give opportunity for the more ambitious clubs progress.

Hopefully something we’ll not need to worry about.

[EdinburghBlue]

On 24/03/2024 at 18:59, Mattmc said:

Don’t see why we couldn’t go to the West. 
Threave Rovers moved to the West in recent years, all be it having to start at the bottom. 

Personally would like to see the West and the South amalgamate, majority of the South would find themselves in the lover reaches but, would give opportunity for the more ambitious clubs progress.

Hopefully something we’ll not need to worry about.

I think an opportunity was missed when the West was set up, but I hope in time that this can be addressed. However, I think this would require regionalisation at the very bottom, something we are told that the SFA is against. Teams that are run on a shoestring wouldn't be able to afford to travel between the far reaches of the expanded West footprint, adding even further to the disadvantage that teams based outwith the central belt have in recruiting players from the sparse populations in their localities.

This could provide an opportunity to structure around travel time rather than local government boundaries. (From Stranraer, by road it's as quick to travel to Kilmarnock as it is to Dumfries, and faster to Glasgow than to travel to many of the South of Scotland grounds in Dumfriesshire. And even faster for the north Dumfriesshire teams to travel to Lanarkshire and parts of Ayrshire.)

In practice this restructuring might be achieved by slotting the top licensed South teams into the top three divisions in the West (and evening of numbers in the leagues over time as has been done in the first few years of the new East/West structures), with the remaining teams slotted into a regionalised structure (for example with the remaining teams from the west of the South competing with teams from Ayrshire).

If Stranraer were to end up in the South it would require a massive effort to get back into the Lowland, something which I doubt the club could afford as a member-based club. We are already at a real disadvantage compared to those clubs which can burn through shareholders' funds and then look to sell more shares when money is tight.

I wonder also if in due course the pyramid structure is going to lead to the SPFL (and possibly also the Lowland) consisting entirely of clubs in and around the cities.

[GallowayBlue]

There was talk of issuing shares back in around 2008 but it didn't go anywhere.

If the model changed in an attempt to secure the club's future, what would change?

Would it not just be the same members buying shares @EdinburghBlue?

Edited March 28 by GallowayBlue

[EdinburghBlue]

I see that Companies House have now published an initial notice proposing to strike Clyde of the Register of companies, because of its annual confirmation statement now being months overdue. 

[O'Kelly Isley III]

2 minutes ago, EdinburghBlue said:

I see that Companies House have now published an initial notice proposing to strike Clyde of the Register of companies, because of its annual confirmation statement now being months overdue. 

I wouldn't worry about, this sort of thing is a normal state of affairs at Dumbarton - the latest is annual accounts.

[EdinburghBlue]

5 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

I wouldn't worry about, this sort of thing is a normal state of affairs at Dumbarton - the latest is annual accounts.

This failure should be relatively easy to sort out. The required form should take no more than five minutes to fill in. But it does suggest that the Board isn't fully on top of things. 

Dumbarton's accounts aren't due at Companies House until the end of next month.

[BallochSonsFan]

Just now, EdinburghBlue said:

This failure should be relatively easy to sort out. The required form should take no more than five minutes to fill in. But it does suggest that the Board isn't fully on top of things. 

Dumbarton's accounts aren't due at Companies House until the end of next month.

 

Unfortunately the problem in this case has not been caused by the local club board.

[EdinburghBlue]

2 hours ago, GallowayBlue said:

There was talk of issuing shares back in around 2008 but it didn't go anywhere.

If the model changed in an attempt to secure the club's future, what would change?

Would it not just be the same members buying shares @EdinburghBlue?

The obvious thing would be that the Club would be owned by shareholders rather than in trust by those who pay an annual membership fee. It would also provide an opportunity to recapitalise the Club, although given the nature of football that would depend on finding enough people willing to put insufficient funds to generate a reasonable amount. But people can put in different amounts – for example look at Spartans' information at Companies House showing the different amounts of shares bought by different individuals when it was set up as a company at the beginning of the decade.

Recapitalisation isn't just a one off event. There are a number of clubs (companies) that have had money dripped into them in small or large amounts in recent years (Alloa as an example). If set up as an ordinary company, the shareholders could choose to sell in future to address financial problems (Edinburgh City recently, and happens often south of the border.) And if the worst comes to the worst, shareholders aren't liable for the debts of the company, losing only their investment. (This is why when shareholders' funds go negative – the company being 'technically insolvent' – this should be a red flag to anyone thinking about doing business with that company. Look at the long list of people left owed money in previous instances of clubs going bust or into administration.)

I said "ordinary company" because there is another type – a Community Interest Company (CIC). I believe this is the structure at Stenhousemuir. Unlike ordinary companies, whose primary purpose is to make profits to distribute to their shareholders, CICs:

• are designed to benefit the community or pursue social and environmental goals. Their primary purpose is to provide benefits to the community they serve, rather than solely generating profits for shareholders.
• are required to have an "asset lock," which means that their assets and profits must be used for the benefit of the community. This prevents the assets from being distributed to shareholders.
• must submit annual Community Interest Company Reports, detailing how they have benefited the community.
• must reinvest profits in the company's social objectives or use them to benefit the community. There are limitations on the dividends that can be paid to shareholders.

A structure worth thinking about?

You will probably laugh at the stuff about ordinary companies making money to redistribute to the shareholders. As I've said earlier in this thread there are quite a number of these in Scotland that burn through their shareholders' funds, and then sometimes follow with a cycle of recapitalisation to give them more money to burn through. We either need proper financial fair play rules in Scotland or shareholders willing to hold directors to account for how they run the company, but that almost never happens in football.

P.S. to be promoted to the top leagues in Spain it's now a requirement to be a company, although special exemptions were given to long-standing members' clubs that had good financial management - including Barcelona and Real Madrid.

[GallowayBlue]

1 hour ago, EdinburghBlue said:

The obvious thing would be that the Club would be owned by shareholders rather than in trust by those who pay an annual membership fee. It would also provide an opportunity to recapitalise the Club, although given the nature of football that would depend on finding enough people willing to put insufficient funds to generate a reasonable amount. But people can put in different amounts – for example look at Spartans' information at Companies House showing the different amounts of shares bought by different individuals when it was set up as a company at the beginning of the decade.

Recapitalisation isn't just a one off event. There are a number of clubs (companies) that have had money dripped into them in small or large amounts in recent years (Alloa as an example). If set up as an ordinary company, the shareholders could choose to sell in future to address financial problems (Edinburgh City recently, and happens often south of the border.) And if the worst comes to the worst, shareholders aren't liable for the debts of the company, losing only their investment. (This is why when shareholders' funds go negative – the company being 'technically insolvent' – this should be a red flag to anyone thinking about doing business with that company. Look at the long list of people left owed money in previous instances of clubs going bust or into administration.)

I said "ordinary company" because there is another type – a Community Interest Company (CIC). I believe this is the structure at Stenhousemuir. Unlike ordinary companies, whose primary purpose is to make profits to distribute to their shareholders, CICs:

• are designed to benefit the community or pursue social and environmental goals. Their primary purpose is to provide benefits to the community they serve, rather than solely generating profits for shareholders.
• are required to have an "asset lock," which means that their assets and profits must be used for the benefit of the community. This prevents the assets from being distributed to shareholders.
• must submit annual Community Interest Company Reports, detailing how they have benefited the community.
• must reinvest profits in the company's social objectives or use them to benefit the community. There are limitations on the dividends that can be paid to shareholders.

A structure worth thinking about?

You will probably laugh at the stuff about ordinary companies making money to redistribute to the shareholders. As I've said earlier in this thread there are quite a number of these in Scotland that burn through their shareholders' funds, and then sometimes follow with a cycle of recapitalisation to give them more money to burn through. We either need proper financial fair play rules in Scotland or shareholders willing to hold directors to account for how they run the company, but that almost never happens in football.

P.S. to be promoted to the top leagues in Spain it's now a requirement to be a company, although special exemptions were given to long-standing members' clubs that had good financial management - including Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Thanks for the explainer.

If we boil it down, at the moment ~50 people pay £50 per season to be a member.

In the new system the club could sell 10000 shares for £10 each, as an example with each shareholder choosing how many to purchase.

That would obviously bring in a good bit of cash in the first instance, then every so often the club could release more shares - diluting everyone else's holding?

I just wonder who would buy these shares though?

For a generous fan that currently wants to make a donation, what would incentivise them to purchase shares instead? A say in the running of the club?

I think I get the idea, just trying to understand how it would work in reality for the club.

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

The last thing you want is fans having a say in the running of your club.

Read any Clyde forum to see the carnage that causes. Shareholders in Shell don't assume they know anything about extracting oil from deserts or oceans, everybody thinks they know football.

[The Moonster]

8 minutes ago, SouthLanarkshireWhite said:

The last thing you want is fans having a say in the running of your club.

Read any Clyde forum to see the carnage that causes. Shareholders in Shell don't assume they know anything about extracting oil from deserts or oceans, everybody thinks they know football.

Just because the Clyde fans can't agree on things like whether signing a rapist is a good idea doesn't mean fan involvement is universally flawed. It obviously comes with disagreements on things but fans are the only ones who won't intentionally kill a club, or strip them of their assets. 

I imagine shareholders in Shell are probably a bit more passive because the company makes billions in profit every year and they have no emotional attachment to how Shell perform in the day to day job. It's a stupid analogy. 

[EdinburghBlue]

2 hours ago, GallowayBlue said:

Thanks for the explainer.

If we boil it down, at the moment ~50 people pay £50 per season to be a member.

In the new system the club could sell 10000 shares for £10 each, as an example with each shareholder choosing how many to purchase.

That would obviously bring in a good bit of cash in the first instance, then every so often the club could release more shares - diluting everyone else's holding?

I just wonder who would buy these shares though?

For a generous fan that currently wants to make a donation, what would incentivise them to purchase shares instead? A say in the running of the club?

I think I get the idea, just trying to understand how it would work in reality for the club.

Not necessarily a panacea, as different models have pros and cons.

A potential advantage of the share model might be that people who don't live in the immediate area and who can't/see no point in becoming a member see this as a way of putting some money into the club. (Fans, descendants of people who have emigrated from the area, or even people who just fancy having a small stake in a football club.)

You are correct about the dilution point on issuing more shares, but if you look at the information on the Companies House website there are clearly a lot of clubs doing this. But two points. First, this need not necessarily be difficult, if with your example you say that the Board has the right to issue up to 200,000 shares or even more when there's demand. Second, it's normal when issuing additional shares that existing shareholders get so-called pre-emption rights, allowing them to invest more if they don't want their share of the business diluted.

Edited March 28 by EdinburghBlue

[Clyde_MM]

4 hours ago, EdinburghBlue said:

This failure should be relatively easy to sort out. The required form should take no more than five minutes to fill in. But it does suggest that the Board isn't fully on top of things. 

Dumbarton's accounts aren't due at Companies House until the end of next month.

I c̶a̶n̶'t̶ actually find this very easy to believe

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

1 hour ago, The Moonster said:

Just because the Clyde fans can't agree on things like whether signing a rapist is a good idea doesn't mean fan involvement is universally flawed. It obviously comes with disagreements on things but fans are the only ones who won't intentionally kill a club, or strip them of their assets. 

I imagine shareholders in Shell are probably a bit more passive because the company makes billions in profit every year and they have no emotional attachment to how Shell perform in the day to day job. It's a stupid analogy. 

In your opinion perhaps. Try not to take things so literally, I'm sure you understood the point I was making, and the reference to a rapist in this thread was frankly uncalled for.

[The Moonster]

35 minutes ago, SouthLanarkshireWhite said:

In your opinion perhaps. Try not to take things so literally, I'm sure you understood the point I was making, and the reference to a rapist in this thread was frankly uncalled for.

I understood your point I just thought it was nonsense, hence my reply. I mentioned the rapist because that whole episode was obviously the biggest piece of carnage (your word) your club has seen and it was brought on by a group of fans demanding it. Clydes personal experience of fan ownership means nothing to any other club.

[SouthLanarkshireWhite]

12 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

I understood your point I just thought it was nonsense, hence my reply. I mentioned the rapist because that whole episode was obviously the biggest piece of carnage (your word) your club has seen and it was brought on by a group of fans demanding it. Clydes personal experience of fan ownership means nothing to any other club.

Nah - you just fancied an argument where one wasn't really necessary.

[DiegoDiego]

1 hour ago, SouthLanarkshireWhite said:

Nah - you just fancied an argument where one wasn't really necessary.

I'm with @The Moonster on this one. Choosing one example of a dysfunctional fan-owned club and saying that's how Stranraer would turn out while ignoring other fan-owned clubs isn't sound logic.

Motherwell, Hearts, St Mirren have all been fine. Dundee and Dunfermline were good enough while fan-owned to sell out to foreign investors. The future of Thistle looks much brighter under fan ownership than it did in the Low years beforehand. Stirling were a shambles for a while, but have sorted that out and seem to be ticking along nicely.

Contrast that with non-fan-owned clubs and you've a similar mix of basket cases (Edinburgh, Livingston) and reasonably well run ones (Raith, Arbroath, Kilmarnock, et cetera).

There's a good chance Clyde would have been a bin-fire even if it wasn't fan owned.

[Deputy Keeper]

Strong rumours that the next to go will not be a current League Two club.

[Sr2004]

33 minutes ago, Deputy Keeper said:

Strong rumours that the next to go will not be a current League Two club.

Edinburgh City presumably?