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I think that's a fair point, and probably an important distinction from the Major Votes question. Whether the project required a formal ballot is one issue. Whether members should have been properly informed about something of this scale is another, and I think the case for the latter is much stronger. If supporters first became aware of the plans because somebody happened to spot the planning application on the Council website, then regardless of what the Major Votes Policy says, that doesn't feel like particularly good communication from either the club or the Society. You wouldn't expect members to be consulted on every planning application or piece of capital expenditure, but this isn't a replacement boiler or some minor work at Fir Park. It's a potentially significant, multi-phase development of the club's training infrastructure and, presumably, one of the larger capital commitments the club has made for some time. There also shouldn't really be anything commercially sensitive about saying, in broad terms, that the club intends to develop new training facilities at Dalziel, why it believes Dalziel is the right long-term option, what the broad scope of the project is and how it fits into the club's overall infrastructure strategy. In fact, as you say, it's positive news. Under normal circumstances you'd expect the club to want to talk about it. For me this gets to a wider point about fan ownership. Member involvement doesn't have to mean a vote on everything. In most cases it should mean something much simpler: members are kept informed about major developments, given enough information to understand the reasoning behind them, and are not finding out about strategically important decisions by accident. The Club Board should absolutely be allowed to get on with running the club. But the quid pro quo for that operational freedom should be a reasonable level of transparency, particularly when decisions involve substantial sums of money or shape the club's infrastructure for years to come. So even if the conclusion is that Dalziel never warranted a Major Vote, I think there is still a legitimate question about why there wasn't proactive communication much earlier in the process. And arguably that is the easier thing to fix. It doesn't require changing governance structures or putting every decision to a ballot. It just requires a better understanding of what members should reasonably expect to be told, and when. That's exactly the sort of information I'd like to see clarified if I'm being honest. I don't know the answer on the length of the lease or agreement, and I've not been able to find it in anything that's publicly available, although that doesn't mean it isn't out there. The club has described Dalziel as the best long-term site, which presumably means fairly substantial protections have been negotiated, but it would be useful for members to know what those protections actually are. The comparison with residential leasehold problems in England isn't quite like-for-like I don't think, because we're dealing with a Scottish commercial/property arrangement here, but I think the underlying point is absolutely valid. A landlord couldn't simply decide halfway through a properly agreed fixed-term arrangement that they fancy completely different terms because the people running the Trust have changed. The contract stands. The more important questions are what happens at rent reviews, whether there are break clauses, what happens if the land changes ownership and, crucially, what happens when the existing term eventually expires. There's another issue I'd probably put ahead of all of those as well: who ultimately owns what the club is paying to build? From what I can see, and I stand to be corrected by someone more in the know, under Scots property law, substantial buildings and improvements on leased land can become part of the land itself unless the agreement provides protections to the contrary. If we're spending millions on a training building, pitches and associated infrastructure, I'd therefore want to know exactly what economic interest the club retains in that investment. So rather than simply asking "how long is the lease?", I'd like to understand the whole package: the length of the agreement, renewal rights, rent and rent-review provisions, break clauses, protection if ownership of the land changes, who owns the building and pitch, what happens to those improvements when the agreement ends, and whether Motherwell has any right to compensation for the value it has created. If the answer is that we've secured the site for, say, several decades on favourable terms with strong renewal and property protections, then that removes a large part of the concern. If the security is considerably shorter or dependent on goodwill when it comes up for renewal, that's a very different proposition when you're talking about this level of capital investment I'd reckon. And that's really why I think greater disclosure around Dalziel would be useful. Nobody needs commercially sensitive clauses or the full legal agreement published, but there should be enough information available for members to understand what the club is actually acquiring or securing in return for the money being spent.

A pertinent question Denny, which has not been answered. I think it has been raised before on here, and still no answer has been forthcoming. The current Dalziel Trust is currently a friendly and cooperative landlord, but as you rightly point out, we can't always assume that to be the case. It has to put its own interests, and not those of MFC, first. We can only guess that the lease is very long term i.e. something like 99 years but we simply don't know. Also, we have not been told what if any legal safeguards have been built into the agreement. It raises all manner of questions.

Good post David. I'm not sure that a vote would be absolutely necessary; it may be, but at the very least, the members should have been kept informed and we weren't. As has been posted before, the members and indeed the wider fan base, only found out about the Dalziel development completely by accident, after a vigilant fan stumbled across the application on the Council's weekly list. Indeed its highly likely that "non fans" (i.e. local residents), if I may be allowed to use that term, were informed before fans. The Club and Society should have been more open by publicising the proposals in advance. Its a very newsworthy item - why would you not do that?

Basic question and apologies if already clarified. How long does the Lease have left on it before it falls due for renewal or renegotiation? Future ‘landlords’ might not be as supportive as the current land owners. What’s to stop them altering the terms? Given the issues house owners are having in England with landowners holding the leaseholder to ransom I trust it is a very long term lease. The UK Parliament are currently looking at ways to protect house owners from excessive demands from landowners. It is a serious problem. Not saying that could happen to MFC, but protections need to be agreed at the outset.

Lucas Weir goes out on loan to Cowdenbeath.

Im hoping all this extra time on the training ground will pay dividends. Id love to see us pass Aberdeen to death, totally dominate possession, reduce them to zero shots on target and score all 4 of ours. Passing with a purpose!

Not any more or less concerned about this game than the others. The hard truth in this league is if you're not at it, any team can take a point or three from you. If we are at it, I think we can win by a goal or three. Robbo, of course will be trying to kick us off the park.

He could have been at Fir Park if he wanted to, but chose the bright lights and glamour of Norfolk instead.

Oh I'll give it a go. Appreciate you're being the diplomat here, but you have to see the paradox in a policy drafted in summer 2025 expressly providing for a vote on the sale of a training facility that, at that point, we didn't have. Going on that we could have also added in the club shall not sell any gold reserves. Isn't there a bit of a “run before you walk” issue here? We're applying the literal wording to selling, while ignoring the literal circumstances that it's impossible get to selling without first going through funding. The policy anticipated a non realised training ground as a major club asset. The question is why that apparently only applies once we're selling it, rather than when we're committing millions to create it. The literal interpretation is moot.

A few posts brought stuff up so I'll work my way through them Not quite as I originally envisaged it. I actually put together a fairly extensive presentation on this, looking at some best-practice stadia such as Parken in Copenhagen and Aalesund's stadium. The link should still be somewhere in the thread Kmcaplin started, although I'd probably update it now as it's two years old. My preference filled in the corners, with hospitality and other functions integrated into those areas, rather than simply having four separate stands. The main stand, with the principal hospitality offering, would predominantly be for Well fans, much as the POD is now, while away-fan hospitality could be contained within their own dedicated area. The allocation between home and away supporters would also be flexible. I'd want the stadium designed so that we could maximise the home support when demand was there, with the away fans getting whatever allocation was appropriate rather than building the stadium around giving them a huge fixed allocation. I'd also favour robust rail seating behind both goals, so that, like at Freiburg, supporters can choose whether they want to stand or sit. And yes, I'd be delighted if we eventually got to the point where Motherwell could say to the OF, “sorry lads, you're getting the mandated 5% this season.” We shouldn't design our stadium around maximising their attendance. On 18,000 being too big, I think that's slightly looking at the question backwards. I'm not suggesting we need to sell 18,000 tickets for every game. The point of the additional capacity is that it gives us room to grow our own support, provides flexibility for bigger fixtures and potentially creates additional revenue streams, while the club can initially budget on the basis of operating as a 13,000-seat stadium. We've effectively settled at a baseline of around 6,000 home supporters thanks to Jens, but I don't think it's unreasonable to think that a new stadium, if designed and operated properly, could lift that. There's a novelty factor initially, but there are also things you can do to make the stadium and matchday experience more attractive in the longer term. And the occupancy argument is worth putting into perspective. If we had 8,000 people in an 18,000-capacity stadium for a midweek February game against St Johnstone, that is 44% occupancy. Two years ago we had around 4,300 home supporters at a similar fixture in a 13,000-capacity stadium, which was only about 33% occupancy. So yes, visually there would be more empty seats but that can be address with perception tricks. But I'd rather have 18,000 seats and 8,000 people with the ability to grow than have 13,000 seats and find that we've designed our ceiling around today's attendance. And there's another reason for the capacity. An 18,000-seat stadium potentially moves us into a different category for things beyond a normal Saturday afternoon. Bigger matches, cup ties, concerts, events and other uses become more viable. You don't need to fill it every week for the additional capacity to have value. Ultimately, I don't think 18,000 should be judged on whether we can fill 18,000 every week. It should be judged on whether the additional capacity can be delivered at a sensible incremental cost and whether the additional opportunities and revenue it creates justify that cost. If the answer to those questions is no, then 18,000 is too big. But I'd like to see that calculation rather than simply assume it is. My analogy wasn't intended to suggest there is one correct answer to the house question, or that everyone should buy the biggest and newest house available. It was to illustrate the disconnect between how some people are talking about funding a new stadium and how we actually approach major financial commitments in the real world. When we commit to what is probably the biggest financial burden most of us will ever make, we weigh up what we want, what we can afford, what we can borrow, what we already have, what we might gain and what risks we're prepared to accept. Some people prioritise location, some space, some condition, some schools or community, and some will choose to renovate rather than move. That's exactly the sort of exercise I think the club should be doing with the stadium question. Compare the options properly, including the financial and non-financial considerations, rather than starting with the assumption that because we already have Fir Park, spending whatever it takes to keep it is automatically the sensible option. And equally, if that exercise concludes that staying at Fir Park and redeveloping it is the better option, I'm perfectly happy with that. I'm arguing for the comparison to be made, not for one particular answer to be predetermined. I don't think how you've taken my analogy quite works because you're assuming that Fir Park is a house that needs a few repairs and cosmetic improvements. That's not really what we're talking about. If my house needed the roof repaired, I'd obviously repair the roof. If it needed rewired, I'd rewire it. But if I was looking at any of a major extension, substantial structural work, subsidence, underpinning, demolition and rebuilding part of the property, I'd be asking a different question: is it actually more sensible and cost-effective to keep modifying this property, or would I be better off buying something that already gives me what I need and turnkey ready? That's not hypothetical either. A friend of mine looked at a major kitchen extension that would have taken the house substantially into the garden. Once the costs and disruption were properly considered, they decided it made more sense to move to a property that already had the internal-external space they wanted. The cost was broadly comparable. That's much closer to the stadium question. I'm not against refurbishing Fir Park if that proves to be the best option. In fact, if a properly costed plan shows that we can achieve everything we need for significantly less money and with less disruption, then great. But repair and improve what we have isn't automatically the financially prudent option simply because we already own it. At some point the scale of the work becomes substantial enough that you have to compare the two options properly: what does a comprehensive Fir Park redevelopment actually cost, what does it deliver, what are the risks and disruption, and how does that compare with the cost and benefits of a new stadium? That's the comparison I'd like to see rather than assuming the answer before we've seen the numbers. But I think Fir Park, like the site it sits on, will always be limiting to our aspirations and potential. I had the same perception seeing the CalMac Ferry nonsense and Edinburgh Trams, so I ask the question on P&B when I published my presentation there. StAndrew7 who doesn't work in construction but aligned with the process outlined why here, it certainly adds context. https://forum.pieandbovril.com/topic/230925-motherwell-fc-a-thread-for-all-seasons/page/3822/#comments I'd add that made me seek out ways to overcome this being an issue and found this really well laid out explanation of how the Madrid subway was extended under budget and ahead of schedule. It's a project management geeky but still interesting in how they completely tore up the way of running capital projects and it was a massive success. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utt-KnIMB3o Finally and I've stressed this at length and in answer to your most recent post, I'll do it again for clarity, my proposal allows the club to operate as it does at present based on 13,000 seats and the revenues that brings in, none of our current income would be used to fund the stadium (I did make a provision for 30% of transfer profits could be funnelled in to reduce the balance which seems both fair and prudent).

I don’t think anyone is suggesting otherwise. I personally don’t mean any ill will to any player who came to us and didn’t work out, for whatever reason. But if they signed for us and were pretty hopeless then they’re going to get mentioned when it comes to discussing players that basically failed. And I say that as someone who has met, shook hands with and found Andy Roddie to be a top class guy…and yet I thought he was hopeless for us back in the mid 90s. The same applies to Alex Burns although I’ve never spoken to him personally…but I know plenty who have.

You win some....lose some. It's all the same to me. Regards Lemmy Grizzlyg

For some players a move simply doesn't work out. It could be for a whole bunch of reasons, often many of them not even football-related. As a club, we've seen our fair share of successful player moves, so when one doesn't go as well as we'd hoped, we just need to accept it and move on.

Reading the exchange between @Goggles & Flippers & @Speedie85 I think there are really two separate questions being conflated here. The first is whether the Dalziel Park project falls within one of the mandatory triggers in the Major Votes Policy. On the wording as it stands, I don't think it does. The policy is quite specific about the circumstances in which a ballot must take place, and capital investment in a training facility is not one of them. On that narrow point, Speedie's interpretation is difficult to argue with. The second question is different though, and I think this is where the discussion becomes more interesting. The policy also gives the Society Board discretion to call a vote on matters outside the listed criteria where there may be an impact on the club's structure, financial stability, governance or identity. That doesn't mean every large decision has to be put to the membership, and nor should it. The Club Board has to be able to operate and make significant commercial decisions without everything becoming a referendum. But equally, the discretionary clause has to mean something. If the figures being discussed around Dalziel are broadly accurate, and the club is committing several million pounds to a long-term infrastructure project on land it does not own outright, then I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask whether the Society Board considered that discretionary provision and, if so, what led it to conclude that a membership vote was not appropriate. That is not the same as saying the policy has been breached. For me, that is the important distinction. The mandatory criteria create certainty. If one of them is triggered, the Board has no choice about whether members get a vote. The discretionary provision exists for significant situations which fall outside those criteria, where the Board still thinks the implications are serious enough to justify wider member involvement. Acknowledging that discretion does not make the specific criteria redundant. It simply means the policy has two levels, mandatory matters and exceptional matters requiring judgement. Where I think the argument in favour of scrutiny is strongest is not around the semantics of whether "selling a training ground" should somehow also mean "developing a training ground". I don't think the current wording supports that. The stronger issue is the nature and scale of the investment itself. If the club is ultimately putting £3m, £5m, or whatever the final figure turns out to be into Dalziel, members are entitled to understand what the club is receiving in return. What are the tenure arrangements? How long are they secured for? Who owns the improvements? What happens at the end of the lease or agreement? What protections exist around the money being invested? What alternatives were considered? Those are proper governance questions. The same applies to the financing point. It is obviously positive that the club is in a position where it may not need to borrow to fund major projects, but the absence of debt does not automatically make a capital allocation decision a good one. Equally, debt is not automatically bad. What matters is the cost, the security, the repayment profile, the risks and what asset or long-term value is being created. That is particularly relevant if there is a wider stadium discussion taking place at the same time. There is an opportunity-cost question around committing several million pounds to Dalziel now versus retaining some of that capital as part of a future stadium or combined infrastructure solution. That doesn't mean one option is right and the other is wrong, but it is a strategic question worth understanding. I also think it is worth being precise about what fan ownership means here. The Society is the majority shareholder, but that does not mean members should be approving day-to-day or even every major operational decision. The Club Board still has a proper governance role and has to be able to exercise judgement independently. Fan ownership does, however, mean there should be clarity around which decisions sit with the Club Board, which sit with the Society Board, and which are significant enough to go back to the membership. So for me the fair position is this: Dalziel does not appear to trigger an automatic Major Vote under the policy as currently drafted. But that does not make the discretionary clause irrelevant. Given the potential scale and unusual nature of the investment, I think it is entirely reasonable to ask whether the Society Board considered exercising that discretion, and if it did not believe a vote was necessary, to explain why. That is a governance question rather than an accusation of procedural breach. If anything, the debate probably shows one area the Society may want to tighten when the policy is reviewed. The current wording is clear around ownership changes, debt, asset sales and relocation, but much less clear around very large capital commitments. A future version could distinguish more explicitly between mandatory reserved matters, discretionary major matters and ordinary delegated Club Board decisions. That would probably prevent exactly this kind of argument next time.

Any thing like St Mirren would be a disaster it's the worse viewing and match day experiance In the league with St Johnstone second worst only because of a higher stand with slightly better view of the game. Fir Park has to be revamped . But history and tradition seem to take second place now with some . A new stadium will leave us with massive debt to pay off diverting money from the team budget. Better struggling to get tickets for a full Fir Park than playing in a half full new one. Supporting Motherwell most of my life for over 55years we won't be playing this type of football forever more seen it all before highs and lows . We need to keep our feet on the ground and be realistic . Revamp FP and keep the rest for a rainy day. New stadium will be a weight around our neck for decades to come.

I'm a bit worried about this game, simply because Aberdeen are absolutely shite and by all measures we should take care of them. A win keeps confidence building, another defeat and our good start takes a knock. I can see us dropping a point / points in this one.

Watched the Celtic - St Johnstone game last night and our former youth player Reece McAleer was absolutely brilliant. Wouldn't mind him being brought back at some point as he definitely has the physicality we lack in midfield

Fair enough. I hate Stadiums like St Mirrens and St Johnstones. How much more expensive would it have been to fill in the corners. Even Livingstons 10,000 seater is better than those two.

I dont think anyone would advocate for a smaller stadium than we currently have...I was more meaning the general design of the Paisley effort

Eric Deloumeaux and Yassin Moutaouakil(sp) have got to be up there too. Likewise the Austrian duo of Franz Resch and Mario Dorner who McLeish spent the entire summer chasing only for them to both leave by the end of September of that season.

If everyone is fit I’d say first six names in any starting line up are Paulsen, Johnny K, Moorman, Longelo, Fadinger and Lowry the remaining five I could probably change my mind every time I think about it. Tough task (good problem) for AJ on team selection/formation.

Oh Elivas Shivute is right up there with biggest waste of space as was Bob Malcolm but at least we didn't pay any cash for them.

And a Stadium like St Mirrens would severely restrict our capacity for income. We have a capacity for 4800 away fans every game, St Mirren have capacity for 1400 that's why their average crowds were so far behind us last season (8620 v 6835) we had room for more home fans and alot of away fans. If we were to build a new stadium it cannot be with a capacity any less than 12,000.

Personally I think our best XI when everyone is fit is: Paulsen SOD McGinn Moormann Longelo Priestman Fadinger Maswanhise Lowry Said Palmer-Houlden

Yes unless its a government project. Before I left Scotland I had only two project go over budget (both involved existing properties which were far worse than thought), usually it due to client change during construction (Politicians are by far the worst). I'm not 100% sure but ptretty sure Saint Mirren, Parkhead and McDiarmid Park were all in budget.