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You've lost me in any vote by advocating for the Old Firm to be given 10,000 tickets at our new home...call that cutting off my nose to spite my face, or being completely parochial but as a business plan, I wouldnt be able to buy into that at all. I completely agree that this issue is far too big for the society (and therefore owners) not to have any sort of say in it, or at least see the details. If someone could convince me that a new stadium wouldn't be a white elephant, and/or a noise around our necks then I may soften

Sure and I can answer that, I don't disagree with the underlying point about risk. A £30-40m commitment is obviously a completely different proposition and I'd want to know exactly how it would be serviced, what the downside scenarios look like and what happens if the current level of player trading isn't sustained. My £250k house analogy wasn't meant to suggest that taking on a £30m mortgage is somehow equivalent to an individual taking out a mortgage. It was really about the standard being applied to the club: that it somehow needs to have every penny sitting in cash before it can even contemplate a major investment. Nobody buying a house says, “I can't afford this because I don't have £250k in my bank account.” They look at income, expenditure, existing assets, borrowing capacity and the risks if circumstances change as well as projected wage increases or any lump sums (bonus', inheritance, etc.) coming their way. The club should be doing exactly the same exercise. In my scenario I suggested we go from a 13,000 stadium to a 18,000 one and make those additional 5,000 seats available to a guaranteed three OF fixtures (possibly four if top six is secured) with potential for two Hearts fixtures (I don't think they'd take the full 10,000 allocation but can assume it would over their current 5,000). Over 20 years that brings in an extra £10m than we realise at present. If you wish to apply that to the mortgage analogy I illustrated, it's now like buying a £250k house on a £35k salary, finding £10k to stick a plumbed garden room studio at the bottom of the garden and stick it on Air B&B for £25k a year income. That changes the complexion of the means to repay the mortgage. To keep the analogy going if you were let go, your personal finances dictate if you get a stop gap job to keep the wolf from the door, do some side hustles or if you do a job that allow it, a few 'homers'. While a football club can't lose it's job, the equivalent is relegation. Reduced revenues demand the club bounces right back up to the top division. For at least one season we have the WS buffer fund, beyond that it gets gets tricky. However, we would also have means to earn money from the stadium outwith matches. A brand new 18,000 stadium would have a whole raft of ways to make money to keep the finance payment schedule over what we currently have. As outlined already, concerts, events, conferences, restaurant, cafe, office and business' rent, gym and Scotland U21/womens, cup finals, etc. Before anyone says we're a football club, sure, a space is rented and we take the rent with favourable access rights granted. What I've proposed to date is five fold: We maintain our current playing budget and in theory that is ring fenced purely for football operations (unlike some clubs that really have to cut their cloth to fund a stadium). We exploit the OF dominance in our area and follow the precedent set by the McLean stand in the mid 90's to fund a significant portion of the build. A new stadium offers no upheaval, relocation, or loss of income during development. The residents around FP would welcome it. We reduce our costs by co-locating all assets and 'sweat' the stadium and ancillary grounds 24/7-365. Consider new revenue streams not even on our radar or we would be capable of at present, there are so many opportunities. While I'm happy with the conclusion for some being “the numbers don't stack up, so we stay at Fir Park and rebuild the Main Stand.” What I don't think is acceptable is reaching that conclusion before the owners have even been properly involved in assessing the proposal. That's the bit I'm arguing about. I'm not advocating a £30m mortgage. I'm saying the people who own the club should get to see the numbers, understand the risks and have a say in whether the opportunity is worth pursuing. If, after doing that, the answer is “too risky, let's rebuild Fir Park”, fair enough. That's a perfectly legitimate position. But that's very different from saying “we can't possibly do it because we don't have £30m sitting in the bank”, which isn't really how major capital projects work.

Surely the clubs dont have to vote it into sfa competitions?

Im in full agreement about the well society and how those at the club should be showing it a lot more respect... ...where I am struggling is the, analogy of the 250k house on the 35k annual earnings. If you lose your job, and have no income, you lose your house (unless you have some form of insurance that would see you through). My concern on taking on a mortgage at club level, of 30 or 40million, would be how we serviced that...yes we have cash in the bank just now, but what if this is a club level purple patch. Id rather err on the side of caution, rebuild the main stand with the finances we have (plus a mo doubt smaller mortgage) and stay where we are.

You've thought this through haven't you? 😁😁 Great post pal and very well detailed

Fan owed, not fan run was a phrase often trotted out by Feely and Dickie, which in hindsight seemed to mean, let us get on with abolishing the Trust we lead in favour of £300k a year from Erik. But there is an important distinction here. In a fan-owned club, there is an expectation that on the big stuff, where we play, where we spend several million pounds on infrastructure, etc., you ask the owner. Nobody would have sidestepped Boyle or Hutchison on something of that scale. You may find it inconvenient, irritating or have a low appetite for engaging over just getting on with it, but that is part of the price of the model, a model in place when you accepted a position and/or role. If you don't want the owners to have a say in major decisions, you can choose not to work for a fan ownership vehicle. I could understand an argument about moving goalposts if any the board were brought in before fan ownership and suddenly finding themselves subject to a different governance model. But they weren't. Of the two seats reserved for club employees, Caldwell met most of the WS board before his appointment and, by all accounts, said (yes, italics again) the right things about fan ownership, mutual respect, two way street, etc. Two others are there because they were elected to the WS board, so in theory they believe in and support the model. The final two are there because the owners saw merit in what they offered and invited them. 99.9% of the decisions in the club are made by the board or by department heads on a day to day basis. That's what the board and department heads are there for. But, like any business, there is a point where a capital expenditure becomes too significant to be decided in isolation. Everyone understands where their personal discretion ends. That is precisely why I wrote the need for a major-votes policy into Our Club, Our Future as a key deliverable following the events of summer 2024. it was driven because if it wasn't for Jay and others, the handing over of the keys by McMahon and Dickie would have been a formality. The next step was defining exactly what should trigger a vote. That was written after I was no longer involved, but when eventually published it looked robust and, importantly, clear. It was adopted last summer. Yet here we are. A feasibility study was commissioned. Architects were appointed. A planning application was prepared and submitted. And now more than £3m is apparently about to be spent. If it hadn't been for an eagle-eyed Well fan spotting it, the first most of us would have heard about it would have been a month or so ago. As it was, we found out in mid-April, which in itself is unacceptable. And then the timeline makes the explanation an even harder circle to square. In mid-February, we were told the feasibility study had arrived only two weeks previously and there wasn't enough time to properly review it before the AGM. Yet within the following eight weeks, it was reviewed, a substantial planning application had been green lit, produced and submitted. Elevations, sections, floorplans, site plans, renderings, traffic management and environmental reports were all compiled. Unless a significant amount of that is stock or boilerplate material, that takes time. Granted, some drawings take less time than when I studied architecture, and AI can now spit out passable 3D material quickly enough to convey an idea. Although, for what it's worth, the image on the official site is grossly out of scale. The bigger point is this: the process was well underway long before the owners/wider fanbase were meaningfully brought into the process was the 31st of July, the point we were was to ask for help with materials, labour or services. Most Motherwell supporters, whether they want radical change or would rather preserve tradition, probably have a number in their head that makes a move possible. That's why people cite Euromillions wins or a run in the Champions League. It's shorthand for, “if we suddenly had the money, we'd do it.” For me, and for some others, the transfer record of the past 13 months changes the conversation. For the first time, it feels as though we may have choices rather than simply having to accept whatever is inevitable. For others, the number might be £50m, allowing the whole thing to be paid for outright. But what I find odd is the standard some seem to be applying, that the club should somehow have all the money sitting in the bank before even considering the possibility. That's not how ordinary people make major financial decisions. Someone on here urging caution sitting in their £250k house they bought while earning £35k a year has to be on some level of irony.

I dont know how much you've read into it, but thats how it seems. Though not a fine as such, rather a reduction of final prize money by 10%, and that be redistributed among those that do comply. Google tells me premiership prize pot is 34M, so 10% of that is up for grabs. If half the teams don't comply you are looking at around 3.4M split between the 6 teams who do. Obviously which clubs comply/ don't comply will alter that sum, but ballpark... doesnt sound to shabby especially for any teams who are close to the criteria as it stands. You can also argue that it reduces the temptation to pack out the bench with journeymen if you are using a few academy graduates there. IMO theres a logic to it, but can totally understand the scepticism around it. Having said that i think the clubs have to vote it in? So an obvious plot hole there.

I'd rather see incentives instead of punishment when it comes to developing youngsters, but I'm not sure what form they should take.

Really interesting and very tough decision. I would love to see Longelo and Williams combine on left side. Midfield 3 of fadinger hodge and lowry. Wide right between kanga...said...JT. Up front Seb or Thor Defence Moormann a shoe in and then between JGR..JKL SOD and Koutrombis

As long as the SFA and SPFL are run by this current mob of inept incompetents, nothing will improve. Anything they propose will only make things worse and somehow manage to make an already stupid situation even more stupid.

Put simply, we don't. We're not alone in that regard. Big English clubs are cherry-picking the top young talent from all over the world, including leagues with more resources than ours. It'll come down to what certain young players see as the way forward for them. Some will want to stay in their native country and get footballing experience, while others will want to move to England and enjoy the bump in salary and try to make a dent there.

Should be interesting to hear AJ’s pre match interview. Hopefully no negative news on injury front and see how he thinks his first real extended time with the players has gone. For sure, he won’t have fixed all our issues. It’s going to take a bit of time before we see the finished article. As Long as we continue to pick up points and play entertaining football I’ll be happy, we can’t (won’t) win every game.

The players available to us under Bertie(apart from a few exceptions … faddy, Fletcher, Ferguson… possible 1 or 2 more) was dreadful. The worst in all my time watching Scotland. When you see lists of the players called up, you had no idea what team they were playing with. Bertie was given a sh1t hand. The standard of player I think got generally better by the time Clarke took over, regular premiership players, decent standard. Unfortunately the football Clarke chose to play was eye bleeding. I’m genuinely quite excited to see how this new manager will do, if he can mix the good ones we have already with a lot of the newer ones coming through. Lennon Miller hopefully included.

Ye big Shaun was unfortunate as he was signed as Uncle Phil's replacement plus he didn't decide the fee. Not the worst......definitely better than Davie Shanks! ( one for 1980's fans)

To be fair, I'd trust every national team selector above Scotland's.

It may help in some cases, but its really tinkering round the edges. For many young lads, a first team salary of say £2k weekly up here would pale into insignificance against a salary of say £5,000 a week at a Wolves or Bournemouth. If the SFA ever impose financial penalties on clubs not giving youngsters game time then the fines should be based on turnover and not be a flat rate.

With the influx of players and an injury list that is easing, what would you say our best 11 is? thor or SEB? left wing Williams or do we move inside and give manny free range up the wing? lowry or Kanga? Said? Where is cookie? faddy and hodge in mid and a back 4 am hoping at the moment they are working on keeping possession and defensive transition.

I think that is the intent of the initiative though. Instead of a promising 17 year old heading down south to play academy football there, they are instead offered a first team wage and the carrot of a place in the match day squad with the guarantee of time on the park ahead of a journeyman who is probably sitting on the bench on a higher salary. Obviously some will still opt for the £££, but you'd like to think it will help in some cases. I am speculating of course, nobody knows how it plays out in reality and whether this is any sort of answer... but it is pretty alarming to hear how far down our country is in terms of giving game time to academy players.

It's funny how we trust every other national team selector but our own when it comes to being capped because Vogts was handed a hard shift from Craig Brown and just threw everything at the wall in terms of team selection to see who would stick, it doesn't just apply to Scotland. Would describe the whole thing as a promising failure, good/bad/mid, he's gone.

John Hendry was probably our worst ever forward signing. Utterly appalling buy. His career was pretty incredible mind you, Dundee, where he failed to break into the first team, Forfar on loan where he scored a couple of goals and then Spurs?? wtf!! Where he played a couple of games and scored 2 against Arsenal in a league cup game. He really should have retired at that point. big Shaun wasn’t the worst although not worth a penny of that huge fee we gave to Killie. He scored a rasper against the artist formerly known as Rangers so he does hold a special place in my heart. for what it’s worth I felt AP was a good player, he just struck me as someone who wanted to give Europe a try, he arrived and was chronically homesick and wanted to go back. I think we did get an offer from a Scandinavian side but he point blank refused to go as he wanted home. Ultimately a bad signing due to the money we paid but a decent player… you don’t get caps for Australia at that time if you weren’t decent.

Our business model now means that spending chunks of money is taking a punt. In Kettlewell's time and before we were looking for freebies.

Other than the transfer fee I raise you Omar Daly signed by his pal Stuart McCall. Biggest waste of space I think I have witnessed at Motherwell. Wonder how much he cost us in wages for no return. And again we were excited when he signed. Jamaican international and a flying machine. Apparently. The point is we sign players every season that don’t work out. Some cost us decent money by way of a transfer fee. Others in wages. Anybody remember Bob Malcolm? Connor Shields? ( currently in Cambodia). List is endless.

Good post Denny. The biggest single issue is that of compensation payable by large English clubs. By dangling very attractive salaries to young Scots, they hoover up the best talent. Thats a very hard nut to crack, but the SFA can't ignore that. Most of these youngsters head south and then return home a year or two later. Understandable,but it does stunt their development.

He scored 17 goals in 26 games for Newcastle Jets the season we signed him and had just broken into the Australian team. A team that would prove good enough to reach the World Cup via Asian qualifying. That’s not easy. When we signed him nobody on here thought it was a poor signing or that £250k was excessive. In truth folk got excited. For whatever reason it did not work out despite early promise. I remember a goal at Ibrox and a cracking strike at Easter Road. Whether it was family reasons, style of football, injury, homesickness, attitude or Managerial choice we will never know but it was certainly a signing everybody thought was refreshing and showed ambition. . His biggest critics appear to have forgotten that, or chosen not to accurately remember. But it did not work out and better for him to move on. I agree it could have happened earlier. I wish him well and would not be surprised if he is a success wherever he ends up.

Apostolos Stamatelopoulos will continue to divide debate within the Motherwell Support for evermore. There were those who had him pegged as a donkey early doors and that is a hill they will die on. There are those who will forever believe there was a player in there and "circumstances" were all that prevented him from showing his best. As always, the truth is probably somewhere in between. He has however now moved on. And so should we. That Callum Hendry is a dud. Lets get him out the door.......😉😉😉