Jay

The player sales model debate is an interesting one. For me, it's not a precarious model by any means. And I'd suggest that it demonstrably works. We're in a situation where the club doesn't urgently need outside investment - it would just be preferable. Our model ensures that it's unlikely that the hypothetical gap outlined in the Well Society's consultation earlier in the year, and the hypothetical gap that is the very reason for courting external investment in the first place, will, based on the experience of fan-ownership to date, materialise. It never has under fan-ownership and, even if it did, the Well Society has enough funding to cover that gap as a one-off. The issue would be if something that has yet to happen didn't just happen one year, but two in quick succession. Of course, nothing is impossible in football. Over the same time period that fan-owned Motherwell has remained in the division, reached cup finals, and made Europe, clubs with bigger resources such as Hearts, Hibernian and Dundee United have all been relegated. So it's a duty of the club to at least recognise that hypothetical gap and see if there's a more productive way to eradicate it, other than relying on the Well Society to plug it if it happens once, and then to probably slash our playing budget if it happens again in quick succession (before the Society has built up the safety net again). But in terms of our model, David Turnbull always gets picked out as a seeming "anomaly" but in reality, he's the result of an effective player sales model. Since fan-ownership came into being, we have - purely off the top of my head, so there'll probably be others I miss - sold, for cash, guys like Louis Moult, Cedric Kipre, Kevin van Keen, Sondre Solholm Johansen, James Scott & Ben Heneghan. We could have, had we tied them down on contracts, added Chris Cadden, Allan Campbell, Jake Hastie, Dean Cornelius & Max Johnston to that list. However, the compensation for each still numbers in the hundreds of thousands meaning that, collectively, that's still well over £1m. We will probably sell Theo Bair on for a relatively decent fee in the summer, January, or next summer, while at the same time, Lennon Miller will almost certainly go for a price that you could perhaps list alongside the Turnbull fee. In terms of any investment meaning a change from that model and the ability to keep our best players, I would argue that is incredibly unlikely, if not impossible. The player sales model is only partly because of a financial need, it's also largely because of the club's stature in world football. As has been mentioned elsewhere, it was confirmed at the AGM by the club that no investment offer is transformational, meaning that there would be no change to the model. In fact, you could argue that, if any investor was keen on getting a return on their investment, the player sales model could become even more important in that situation. The only way in which our model ceases to be our model that I can see is if we ended up with an incredibly unlikely Colin & Christine Weir scenario where a diehard Motherwell fan wins the Euromillions and wants to just chuck cash at the club. But even in that situation, where you don't necessarily need to sell players, players would still be sold - because the best guys will always want to move on to play at perceived bigger clubs or in better leagues, regardless of how much cash you're able to throw at them. The player sales model at Fir Park has been in place, and worked successfully, before fan-ownership, has worked under fan-ownership, and will continue to work regardless of whether the club is owned by the fans, an external investor, or a hybrid of the two. Personally, I think it's both a successful model that we should be positive about, because we're good at it, and a model that will be integral to the club whether we like it or not anyway.

In terms of the precise annual figure, it was roughly in that ballpark. It may have been close to £120,000, but essentially the majority of the funds raised on an annual basis went into the club as a loan. The loan to the club remains & hasn't been written off. Just also to clarify, the Society putting cash into the club on that annual basis ended when Les was paid off. It no longer happens. Instead, the majority of members pledges remain within the Society finances, which thankfully allows us to now be in a position to highlight that £750,000 we have. I imagine things would be a lot more negative regarding the Society's ability to be the majority shareholder going forward if there was the prospect of a £750,000 gap in 18 months, and we had a few quid. And on the point around whether the arrangement with Les was communicated to members or not, I can only play the massive cop-out card & say that was before my time, so I genuinely have no idea how members were informed about that, if at all (I say that as someone who was a member at the time but has obviously forgotten).

I just wrote a rather large reply to this & then lost it so hopefully I manage to remember everything again... This is absolutely the kind of thing that should be accessible & transparent though. I can only really speak for the time I've been involved in the Society, since early 2017, but when I joined the board, the club was still very early on in the "repay Les Hutchison's loans" journey. You may remember that, at the time, there was the Double Your Money campaign, where every penny raised by the Society would see Les cut his loan by the same amount. However, also part of the loan agreement, was that the Society would put - if memory serves - around £130,000 into the club on an annual basis (in the form of loans). This effectively meant that, as a result of the Les Hutchison loans to the club, the model of the Well Society changed from being that contingency fund to investing in the club on a yearly basis. Alongside that, there is also the reality that, albeit infrequently, there may be the odd situation where the majority shareholder is asked to invest a sum in the club for a genuinely important reason. The example I'd maybe use to flesh that out a little would be if there was an injury crisis in January & the playing budget was already maxed out, would an owner elsewhere be able to reduce the chances of relegation by increasing that budget slightly to cover a target? And if so, should the Society do likewise? As I say though, very much not a regular occurrence by any means. Beyond that, in more recent years, there has been a process in place to allow parts of the club to apply to the Society for a sum of funding. The funding is capped & an application has to be submitted that details what the funding is for, what the benefit is, and why the funding can't be sourced elsewhere. The Society Board has to agree as a majority to accept any of those applications, and a number have been rejected during my time. Those that have been accepted are usually publicised at the time, the defibrillator outside the ground & a couple of youth teams travelling to Ireland to take part (and win) a cup competition spring to mind. The sums spent on successful applications are small in relation to the kinds of big sums we're talking about and even then, the Society Board would point blank refuse any application if the club itself was in any sort of financial trouble or it just wasn't viable or deemed as worthwhile. And then there's the usual admin fees, other expenses, and the staff salary that the Society pays on an annual basis. I am not aware of any ongoing funding of or donations to the likes of the Community Trust, outwith any requests they've had regarding funding in the past that we've possibly agreed to. That for me is a - albeit second attempt - rough outline of the Society's financial approach as I understand it. There's no doubt that the model of the Society switched during those years following Les Hutchison but, in more recent years, there's been a conscious effort to switch back to the original model, hence the ability to build up £750,000. All that said, if you're looking for more specific figures, I would absolutely contact the Well Society by e-mail. None of this should be a secret.

Just wanted to jump on to address this point - I understand why there's a perception that the club needs an injection of significant investment by October, but I think it's important just to add the context to that. If the club finishes 10th without any player sales or cup runs (so, essentially, worst case scenario without going down), there's a gap in the finances in 18 months time of around £750k. It's my understanding that this has essentially been the case for the last couple of years, it's only really being discussed now as a result of the investment video & resulting negotiations that everyone is aware of. The Well Society has around £750k in reserve so, at the moment, it could be argued that, if we were to finish 10th with no cup runs & no player sales, the Society would already be in a position to meet that shortfall in 18 months time. Of course, that doesn't eradicate the ongoing problem but I think it does at least add a little more context to the situation we're in. In addition, if we finish higher than 10th, that £750k is naturally reduced. And if things go very well in the next few games & we - as unlikely as it seems - make the top six and/or sell Lennon Miller (or Theo Bair!) suddenly the £750k isn't just reduced, it's potentially eradicated for a number of years. The idea of October as a deadline is a result, I believe, of the need for the club to demonstrate to the SPFL at that point that it can meet its obligations (ie. fixtures) for the following 18 months. It's obviously very difficult to ascertain what that will look like in practice, because by October some of the things I've suggested above could happen - or, of course, we could still be relegated - but I think at this stage there's a genuine hope that, between the potential of a strong end to the season, at least one very sellable asset, and the Society's cashflow, we could do that even without external investment before that point. That's something that might have to be achieved regardless because, as mentioned before, even if we all wanted rid of fan-ownership, there's still a real possibility that the external investment doesn't materialise for a variety of different reasons (including Society members just voting against it). So yeah, in short, hopefully that adds a little more flesh to the bones around the idea that the club needs an injection of significant investment by October. Simply put, there's a lot of moving parts and, given the model the club operates under & has done for many years (in terms of league position & selling assets), there's still a big question mark around what October even looks like in financial terms. The absolute worst case scenario is needing significant external investment by the date but there are outcomes, however, where that is not necessarily the case. How likely those outcomes are is entirely open to personal opinion I'd imagine. As for the bucket collection, I have to say I've not been involved in the plans for Well Society Day - other than offering my time on the day - so I can't really comment there.

100% agree. As someone who pays monthly & gives up a lot of time to the Well Society (Wednesday is the only evening this week there's not been some sort of Society meeting!), I personally wouldn't necessarily be interested in giving either if the Society was no longer the majority shareholder - that's just a personal view obviously. I have contributed that money & energy to date either because we were working towards fan-ownership, or because fan-ownership is in play. If you don't have either of those reasons to contribute financially, there can be no expectation that folk will contribute financially. Again, agreed 100%. There are those of us on the Well Society Board who completely recognise that attracting external investment while still maintaining fan-ownership is far from radical. In fact, as I've mentioned before, the video that kicked this all off was specifically about attracting exactly that kind of investment - spelt out by Leann Crichton inviting investors to join the Well Society members who own the club, rather than replace them. No offence taken! I don't think it's necessarily about the Society being happy to share certain information - the vast majority of this kind of information should be accessible and transparent. A fan ownership organisation has to be more honest & more transparent than an ordinary football club, and that's something myself & one or two others on the board had been trying to push forward for some years without much success. However, that said, when the approach taken to recording & updating the information is simply not good enough from an administrative point of view, I think it probably throws up a few barriers when folk ask to access that information. There's a couple of reasons for that, but the main one for me is that the Society, quite some time ago, put a lot of effort into identifying a new CRM system that would allow us not just to easily maintain & update membership information but would, hopefully further down the line, allow members themselves to access that information, to see how much they'd contributed, their membership level etc, without having to ask. The club, however, was more interested in pursuing a system that would serve both organisations, as well as the Community Trust - a sensible, welcome approach, but a approach that, after several years, has never resulted in anything worthwhile. I think the reality now is that the Society needs to return to that original plan which, along with all the other work being done in the communications workstream, will undoubtedly lead to far more information with greater transparency being accessible. In that regard, I'd ask both members & non-members just to hang fire for a few months & then judge the Society's output in terms of communication & the ability to access information. If it's still shit, then the work we're currently undertaken hasn't been good enough - but I'm actually buzzing about the folk we've gotten involved in that, so I'm very confident about vastly improving things over the coming months. All this kind of information is also directly feeding into the strategy that the Society Board is now putting together. Negotiations between the club and the investors mentioned at the AGM will continue following the consultation, but we as a Society Board have to behave as though we're going to be the majority shareholder come the summer - investors can pull out, due diligence can raise serious red flags, members could vote against investment options (something made even more likely now given 35% have indicated they'd vote against regardless of offer). We're meeting with some very impressive, dynamic people in both the business & football world to feed into that strategy, we're looking at serious proposals that would allow the club itself to generate more income alongside the Well Society (to show that the assumption that the Society alone should be expected to foot the hypothetical financial gap is not necessarily accurate), and we're preparing the kind of information you're speaking about to ensure that Well Society members can not only be sure that the Society is a reasonable enough default option, but that it's actually the best option on the table.

Despite my promises of a breather, I couldn't help but log on again just to answer this. 😂 It's worth highlighting that the accounts of the Well Society aren't kept a secret or anything, members at the last AGM got a copy and, it's my understanding, that you'd be able to get sight of the accounts as a member so, if that's something you're keen on, I'd recommend emailing the Society directly. And, of course, if any investment offers did go to a vote, members would be provided with as much detail about everything as possible. That said, stuff like this should absolutely be far more accessible to members. I personally feel like the move away from a standalone website particularly hampered the ability to provide the kind of information members want in an accessible, transparent way, and it's ongoing issues around that communication & transparency that have led to the rolling out of new workstreams to specifically deal with these things. I believe information on the workstreams is going out this week. But aye, I genuinely don't have the accounts to hand as I had a physical copy from the AGM but, even if that sounds like a bit of a cop out, I am genuinely not aware of any alarm bells from the last few years. As highlighted in the consultation email, the Society brings in an income of £155,000 net per year at the moment, and the only outgoings are the staff member's salary, admin costs, and whatever is decided to be spent on the club or other projects (Youth Academy, Community Trust etc). Some years those outgoings will naturally be larger than other years, depending on what we've agreed to finance, but the Society always ends the year with a profit & there certainly aren't any issues with Society finances I'm aware of. Happy to take on board the "hear say" though, even if you want to DM it. If there genuinely is a concern there, I can obviously raise it with the Society Board & get a proper answer (which is what would tend to happen if you emailed in the concern anyway - you'd likely get a response with input from Tom Feely, who is essentially the Society's treasurer/accountant, as well as Co-Chair).

Not long back from Fir Park so thought I'd fire a reply to this now, having spoken to someone about it earlier. My interpretation was essentially right but always good to double check! So, in short, you're pretty much right - your understanding is correct, albeit the figure might be inaccurate. Essentially, the club's Executive Board has to be able to demonstrate to the SPFL in October that it will be able to fulfil all it's obligations, such as fixtures, for the next 18 months. If we don't, a red flag gets put against us in the system which could mean some sort sanctions (which I don't have the knowledge of at the moment). This happens every year and will happen again this year. Whether it's the Well Society in control of the club, a new majority shareholder, or the Society with external investment in another arrangement, that'll happen. I think the difficulty, and vagueness, comes when you want to stick figures on it. The £750k in the Well Society's coffers may very well be fine. There's a lot of moving parts of course - by October, the playing squad won't be remotely the same, we may have finished higher than 10th, some big earners might move on , and various other aspects that pretty much mean it's not really possible to put a figure on it at this stage. Of course, it's also important to remember that this is an annual process so it has to be done every year - so if the Society did empty it's reserves at any point, it becomes a greater challenge next year and so on. That's why the Well Society isn't saying "everything's fine" and is instead looking to both grow its own membership & income, and look for outside investment. The future of the club is never in doubt under fan-ownership, the issues arise in terms of competitiveness if budgets had to be cut enough to ensure we could fulfil those obligations in future years. Basically, I think we'd always be able to meet the requirements but there could come a time when that does hinder us quite significantly on the park. That really just ties in with what I've posted elsewhere in terms of what folk really want from their football club - the spectrum from "short term success with a risky future" to "long-term existence but ongoing challenges to ensure you're at the top level". Hope that clarifies it a bit. I'm not sure if I even had to outline that as much, rather than just say "are, you're basically right" but it's keeping my mind off of being raging at today's injury time. 😂 Hopefully that addresses some of the other points too, although I would just add that I agree with the suggestion about changing the view of club projects etc - I think that's very much the case. Around £900k has been loaned to the club for various requirements over the years, with additional smaller amounts provided for the "projects" you mention. But it's important to safeguard as much of the Society's reserves as possible just now because, even if we all desperately wanted to leave fan-ownership behind us, that might not be the outcome, and so the Society has to act like it's going to be the majority shareholder without any additional investment, while still looking for that investment. Hope that's useful - I'm really keen to still post to provide some more transparency and communication from the Society side, but I also need to take a breather from the last week - I know they get a lot of grief at times but I genuinely don't envy Derek Weir & those on the Executive Board, I've been pretty much thinking and talking about nothing other than this for days, even losing some sleep at times, so I can only imagine how much of a slog it all is for them. 😂

Absolutely fair to raise this - while I have very strong views on the debate, I am trying to be factual & balanced so entirely right to highlight if I've missed something! My understanding is that you are correct around the need for the club to outline to auditors later this year that funds are available to cover the following 18 months, and I believe that Derek Weir outlined both that & stated that the Well Society being able to do so was his preferred option (@StAndrew7 may be able to correct me if I'm wrong though!). That's something that might have to happen anyway - regardless of the outcome of the consultation, the Society has to approach the coming months assuming there'll be no external investment because there's every chance that those with offers on the table could pull out, further negotiations could break down, due diligence could raise red flags, or Society members could vote against any proposal. So it's something that the Well Society will absolutely have to prepare for & I am not aware of us as a Board being told that that is not doable. However, I do agree that it's perhaps one of the few vague areas in the discussion, particularly around specific figures - so, in order to make sure we're dealing with the facts, I'm happy to seek a proper bit of clarification on that specific issue from those at the club & post here again with that, rather than responding with my own interpretation of the situation. Hopefully that will be a bit more useful!

As has been mentioned, the director in question moved job role several months ago so, as much as folk are entirely free to link the resignation with perceived "financial trouble", it was always going to happen regardless due to time constraints etc. In terms of the CEO, I think there's a lot of valid criticism to be levelled at the club for the lack of movement in that area previously & certainly around lack of communication. However, at the moment, we are simply in a situation where there will be no CEO as long as the majority shareholding in the club is up for negotiation. Any potential new majority shareholder would want to either appoint their own people or have a very strong input into any appointment, so despite a recruitment process having already been carried out & suitable candidates identified, there'll be no movement there for the time being. The club theoretically could offer the job to one of those suitable candidates tomorrow if the majority shareholding was no longer a part of any negotiations. That's not me trying to sway anyone's vote one way or another, it's simply the reality of the situation - and something I think that was mentioned at the AGM too. As for the Society saying they can raise £600k a year, I'm not sure I've seen anybody say this? The Society is saying it can grow & generate more income than it currently is. The financial situation of the club hasn't changed - where we are now is where we've been for years, we have a model that is essentially based on bringing through young players & selling them on, while also hoping we can finish higher than 10th & get a few cup ties. Because of that model, since fan-ownership we've made a net profit of £2.2m. If that model was to fail for a season, the Society already has the funds to plug the gap that would arise but fully supports looking for external investment to ensure that, if that model failed a second time before the coffers were rebuilt, the gap wouldn't be an issue. That's essentially the whole situation in a nutshell. The idea that the Society or indeed anyone even needs to put £600k in a year just isn't accurate. We have a particular model based around a strong youth academy & selling players for profit - a model that could be in place even if we didn't have fan-ownership - and this is about adding extra protection to maintain the level we can budget for should there be a couple of terrible seasons. Some think that should be achieved by actively looking to move on from fan-ownership, some think that could be achieved by considering options that include moving on from fan-ownership, and some think that can be achieved by maintaining fan-ownership while also looking for external investment that aligns with that (which was, in all fairness, the pitch in the video where potential investors are invited by Leann Crichton to join the 3,700 odd members of the Well Society rather than replace them). In what seems to have become quite an emotive debate all in, there's not really a wrong answer there - just differing opinions of what's possible & different perspectives of how important fan-ownership is to each individual 'Well fan.

As I've just posted on P&B (so apologies to folk who peruse both and are getting a repeat), it's been encouraging to see some positive mentions of the actual consultation email content itself like this. I'm not sure if that's the widespread response but there's certainly been some favourable comments made. It might not seem like it, but a lot of collective work went into the content to try and ensure it was as balanced as possible and avoided anything that was too leading in either direction, so if that has been achieved, it's a good thing. Although that said, one thing that maybe could have been clearer in hindsight going by some of the comments is that idea of the consultation being non-binding. It's to give the Well Society and club parameters within which to approach current, and any further, investment offers in terms of negotiations, while also clarifying if steps such as green lighting a CEO and beginning to rebuild & refresh the Executive Board can be undertaken, or whether those kinds of things need to remain on hold. However, I think it's worth highlighting that if the Hollywood A-Lister did indeed rock up at the Chapman Building carting wheelbarrows of cash and looking for majority shares, nobody would say "sorry Taylor hen, the Well Society voted in a non-binding consultation not to give up fan-ownership so you'll need to taxi it back to the airport". 😂

Apologies if I've picked this up wrong but, assuming I'm understanding this, that's incorrect on a few levels - firstly, the Well Society absolutely will slow investment if there's genuine red flags or reasons to do so, outwith just the level of shares that any investor is seeking (something I would, hope, that most Motherwell fans would expect). Secondly, there's no pre-agreed position on retaining 51% - hence the announcement last night that Well Society members are to be consulted on that. By "they", I presume you mean the Well Society? I don't think I've ever seen, heard or read anything from the Society, or anyone associated with the Society, that suggests there's a claim of being able to plug a "£1.6m deficit by raising £600k a year".

It's essentially a bit of blend. If there's a specific thing that the Society is asked to cover, and that can be pretty much anything in terms of the club, Youth Academy, Community Trust etc, then ordinarily it would be an agreed investment, not on a loan basis. Obviously we're talking pretty low numbers there. However, I think it's already been confirmed in the club accounts, that the Society loan increased by £40k this year, so there are still circumstances where that approach is deemed as best.

Just to clarify, that is essentially the model that the Society has returned to over the last couple of years. There was a period, when Les Hutchison was involved, where the model was required to change but since the end of that agreement, we have sat on the funds being generated which, as mentioned above, puts us on target for around £750,000 in the coffers. Essentially, that very much is back in line with the original idea of fundraising for emergency use, and we only now invest any of that cash in the club for very specific things that have A. Been asked of the Society, and B. There's good reason why the club cannot directly fund whatever it is. Obviously, that may change again - the status quo doesn't work and part of the Society's strategy going forward may be the ambition of supplying the kind of investment in the club that's needed, similarly any investors would maybe have caveats on what the Society would be expected to do with its money.

This is a really interesting question and one I've asked in previous weeks - what does the Well Society actually look like as a minority shareholder? Does it even exist, never mind continuing to gather funds? Would it lay in waiting, ready to take over again if things went south? The main barrier I could see there is that, without the majority shareholding, the very reason for people to put their hard-earned money into the Society is no longer valid. I would expect a major crash in membership & income in that scenario, in which case the question then becomes whether it would make sense for the Society to even continue. It's certainly a big question that needs a lot of thought, I think the actual investors themselves probably play a role in putting forward their own thoughts on the role of the Well Society, if any, in their "vision" of investment. Certainly, on a personal level, I'd likely have to give my own involvement consideration because I'm involved, and believe I've been tasked with being involved, to try & grow fan-ownership, rather than wind it up.

Great post mate - just wanted to reiterate this point. There's essentially no status quo option, there's the two investment options as well as the Society undertaking its own study & producing its own strategy, while simultaneously rolling out workstreams to target five key areas (communications, fundraising, membership, governance & events - more information should be shared with members in tomorrow's newsletter). I think we can all agree that there's a ceiling to the kind of growth & income the Society can generate, and what that is is clearly open to debate, but there is a refreshed desire to seriously looking at reaching that ceiling going forward, and, thanks to the board's renewed makeup, there's a majority of folk on there now keen to make sure that happens.