David

This is what I've said:

So when I say "anyone actively breaking the law should be dealt with by the authorities, and the club should, whenever possible, ban and revoke season tickets" you agree? I don't understand the conversation we seem to be having? So if someone, for whatever reason, decides to run onto the pitch, or otherwise violates the stadium code of conduct, and they happen to have a ticket for the section you sit in, the same rule should apply?

Obviously I mean that any infringement of the law is dealt with by the law in the country where the offence took place. Motherwell is a Scottish club. So I mentioned Scottish law. If a Motherwell fan assaulted someone while following our club in Europe, I obviously wouldn't expect the Scottish authorities to deal with it. The same applies here. Scotland explicitly criminalises football-match possession of pyro. From what I can see, Germany regulates pyro mainly through general explosives law and stadium/football regulations. We could potentially identify the culprits and deal with them at club level, as I mentioned previously.

No one is saying that, though, especially not me. I said if anyone is seen to be breaking the law (and under the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles Scotland Act 2022, it is an offence to possess pyrotechnic articles at designated sporting events) then they should be dealt with accordingly by the authorities, as well as "alongside their season ticket being revoked and them personally being banned."

There's no middle ground then? It's either come in and read the riot act and issue threats, or do nothing? Here's a question. You say that areas of the stadium should be closed if people don't toe the line. Cool. What about season ticket holders in that area who aren't guilty of anything? Are you forcing them to move seats? Where are you putting them? Or are you telling someone who happens to sit in that section of the ground that they're out on their ear because someone lit a flare? Season ticket paid for, but no longer valid? That's a nice little court case waiting to happen. Unless you have some answer to the above that would legally cover the arse of the club, then it's unworkable. The situation can easily be remedied. You don't aim any messaging or threats at any "groups", you simply say that anyone who is identified as breaking the law will have their details handed to the police. Simple as that. From there, it will be the decision of the country's legal framework to decide what happens, alongside their season ticket being revoked and them personally being banned.

Is there a single instance in the history of football where being heavy-handed, banning groups of people from grounds, shutting areas of the stadium and so on has actually ever worked long-term? We've seen it tried in this country and others. That approach doesn't work.

I can only speak personally, but you're a valued member of the forum, and those jokes do actually get a chuckle from me every now and then.

And I'm sure the older sweetie paper rustlers of the day were looking down their noses at you back then! 👀

Again, if feeling is so strong throughout the league it's on the fans to make their views known to the clubs and try to force their hand. My feeling, though, is that if the clubs tried to dictate to Sky or any other provider when games can be shown, and how many 3pm Saturday kickoffs there have to be, we'd at least see a sizeable reduction in the value of the deal, if not the actual companies themselves saying, "no worries, we'll find something else to put money into. Best of luck." On clubs having little to no regard for the impact on fans, I think they're caught between a rock and a hard place. Do they draw a red line with the TV companies as mentioned above, and risk the TV deal being worth less? Will fans be happy to accommodate less of a playing budget, a downturn in quality perhaps, and clubs not being able to spend in order to have more fan-friendly kickoff times? It's a nuanced situation.

Further to what was said above, I think some people are too quick to view "the bois" as an organised, cohesive group that is singularly responsible for all of these infractions. The truth is that it's likely more complicated than that. It's like a media report saying that "Motherwell fans" chanted X, Y, or Z during a game. Which Motherwell fans? All Motherwell fans? Some Motherwell fans? And the classic insinuation that somehow there's a way that fans should be self-policing or something. Bottom line is, if individuals break the rules, they should be dealt with. But dealt with as individuals. Unless there's a planned, coordinated incident, such as an offensive tifo that was put together by a single group or something along those lines, I wouldn't be too quick to condemn a certain group in particular.

Or he'll lose a few games, get outcoached by Robinson and Elvis, and the fans will be wanting him out the door!

Having read the feedback above, I think there is quite a lot to be positive about in the direction of travel. Moving away from the idea that the Society exists purely to accumulate an ever-larger rainy-day fund makes sense to me, provided the investment side is properly governed. Loans for specific projects are also clearly preferable to simply transferring money into the club to support annual operating costs. Where I'd probably still like a little more clarity, if it were me, is around the governance framework sitting underneath all of this. For me, the key question isn't really whether Active Investment is a good idea in principle. I think it probably is. The question is what controls are in place to make sure that a sensible idea remains sensible when we're dealing with significant sums of members' money over a number of years. One thing I would distinguish quite carefully is between the Society's cash reserve and money it has lent to the club. If the Society has £1.3m in cash and lends £300k to MFC, it hasn't necessarily "lost" £300k. It now has a loan receivable instead. But from a risk point of view, those two things are not equivalent. The whole purpose of a reserve is that it is available when something goes badly wrong. Unfortunately, the point at which Motherwell FC might most urgently need Society support is also likely to be the point at which the club is least able to repay loans already advanced to it. So I wouldn't personally count £1 of loan to MFC as equivalent to £1 sitting in an accessible Society reserve. That is why I'd probably look for the reserve policy to be expressed in terms of a minimum level of liquid, readily available funds rather than simply total Society assets. I'm also wouldn't be particularly persuaded by the argument that £1.5m will be reached within two years at current subscription levels. That's useful for forecasting, but projected future subscriptions aren't reserves today. I'd much rather see the Society establish what level of liquid protection it believes is genuinely necessary based on the risks facing the club, stress test that periodically, and then invest above that level. That might still produce £1.5m as the right answer, by the way. But it might produce another number. The important thing is that the figure is based on present-day risk rather than simply being inherited from when the Society was created. The second area I'd be interested in is the actual loan framework. Saying money will only be advanced as loans is reassuring, but "loan" covers an enormous range of arrangements. For material sums, I'd expect there to be clarity around purpose, repayment, security, what happens if a project goes over budget, what happens if it is abandoned, whether further drawdowns can be stopped, how performance is reported back to the Society and what happens if the club's financial position deteriorates. None of that needs to be made public in commercially sensitive detail, of course, but it might be worth knowing that there is a consistent framework being applied rather than each project effectively being negotiated from scratch. There is also a slightly awkward governance issue that comes with the Society being both majority shareholder and potentially a significant lender to the club. Normally the interests of the Society and MFC should be closely aligned, but they aren't necessarily identical in a financing transaction. The club will understandably want capital on the most favourable terms possible. The Society Board, on the other hand, has a duty to protect the Society's own assets and make sure members' money is being used prudently. Where individuals have roles or influence on both sides of that relationship, I'd expect there to be a very clear conflicts process. That might mean declarations, recusals in certain circumstances, separate advice, or simply making sure decisions are independently minuted and justified. And don't get me wrong, that isn't about distrusting anyone involved. It's just good governance when related organisations are transacting with one another. The other thing that caught my attention is the language around what the money can be used for. The previous funding consultation talked about investment in specific revenue-generating projects where there was a clear business case and benefit to the club and Society. What is being discussed now, from what I can tell, seems slightly broader and refers to infrastructure projects generally. That may be entirely intentional and perfectly reasonable. There are infrastructure projects which might not directly generate revenue but could still create substantial long-term value for the club. But if the investment mandate is being widened, it might be worth looking for that to be explicit rather than something which happens gradually through interpretation. I also think project selection needs a proper appraisal process. Inviting supporters to suggest projects is a good idea and probably helps make fan ownership feel more tangible. But ultimately projects should be assessed against the same criteria rather than popularity. I'd expect things such as total cost, club contribution, useful life, financial return or savings, sporting benefit, ownership of the resulting asset, downside risk, legal protections and alternative uses of the money all to be considered. One question I'd particularly include is whether Society funding is genuinely additional. For example, if the club was already going to spend £250k of its own money on something and the Society simply substitutes its £250k instead, the Society money may technically be ring-fenced to the project, but economically it has freed £250k of club cash for another purpose. That isn't automatically wrong, but it is something the Society will hopefully understand when it says its money won't be used to support day-to-day operations. The possible conversion of loans into additional shares also makes sense in principle, but I think that needs more structure before significant sums build up. There would need to be an agreed process for valuing the club, deciding how many shares the debt converts into, protecting existing shareholders and handling any conflicts around the transaction. "We'll find a fair way to do it later" becomes much harder once there is £1m or £2m sitting on the table. Overall, it seems the report of the meeting is more positive about Active Investment than negative. I certainly don't think the Society should simply accumulate money indefinitely while the club has sensible opportunities to improve its infrastructure and financial position. But I do think this is the point where the Society starts moving from being primarily a membership and supporter organisation into something that is also acting as a serious capital provider. That requires a slightly different level of discipline. For me, the ideal outcome would be a written Active Investment framework setting out the minimum liquid reserve, what kinds of projects qualify, maximum exposure, approval thresholds, loan/security requirements, conflicts procedures, reporting obligations and how any future debt-to-equity conversion would work. If that structure exists and is robust, members shouldn't need to vote on every individual project. They can instead hold the Board accountable for making decisions within a framework everyone understands. To me, that's probably the more mature version of fan ownership anyway, not members micromanaging every expenditure, but members knowing the rules under which significant decisions are being made and being able to judge afterwards whether those rules were followed.

It's not specific to you, if I'm honest. I hear fans doing that all the time. We're nowhere near the English Premiership. Virtually no league on the planet is. The Premier League isn't just England's domestic football league commercially. It's one of the world's biggest sports media properties. It regularly has something like 1.45 billion live viewers in a season, is broadcast in 190 odd countries and has 2 billion+ followers worldwide. I'm not saying our TV deal is great value, by the way. Scottish football clearly punches miles above its weight. But stadium popularity and global broadcast value are two different things. If you want to argue the SPFL undersells Scottish football, compare our deal with Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Austria or Ireland and look at what broadcasters pay per game and per potential viewer. But anyone comparing a highly successful national football competition with one of the biggest global entertainment products on the planet is mental. And just because they're located down the road doesn't make any difference to that.

Why are you comparing our TV deal to the English Premiership? It's hardly even the same sport at this point. We're not competing with them. Do you think the Swedish, Norwegian, Danish or Finnish leagues compare their TV deal to the English Premiership?

There's a simple answer. Knock back any TV deal that wants control over kick off times. However, we'll need to be prepared to see a fairly sizeable reduction in money coming into the game. Can't have both. A TV company pays good money for content, and they deserve to have a say in how the deal is executed.

Like many Bodø/Glimt players, he's struggling after leaving the club. They play a certain way, and it suits certain players, but clearly taking someone from that approach and trying to shoehorn him into the way O'Neill's teams tend to play isn't proving to be all that effective to this point.

Looking back over their recent history, they're certainly not the equivalent of Celtic in Scotland. Successful for sure, but they weren't romping to title wins only for AJ to come in and fail spectacularly. In fact, when he left them, they pointed out many of the things he did well and explained somewhat the period they were working through and what they hoped to accomplish under his leadership. Personally, I don't think we should be considering any kind of failure at a club like that as reason to question his ability at our level. If we're honest, success at that level would have resulted in him not even being in the discussion for a club like us.

Where did they finish the season before he came in?

If there's anything to take comfort in, it's that for the most part the over-reactions and grumbling from the crowd will play little part in how the people in charge act. We've seen this all before. Social media & fan forums all slowly begin losing the plot, but the club itself certainly does not have a reputation for being trigger-happy when it comes to managers and the process we're following. My guess is that any kind of real questions will be asked of AJ post-Christmas. That's usually the first stage where assessment takes place at most clubs, and I don't think we'll be any different. Also, despite last season's heroics, I'm fairly certain our aims haven't really changed. Secure Premier League status as a priority, then once that looks likely, we push on for a top six finish. But in all honesty, I could see us finish 9th this season and retain the manager with an aim to see what progress is made next season. Just because Jens hit the ground running and we managed to unearth some gems that did the same doesn't mean we have a magical recipe to do the same thing every season. If we did, much larger clubs would be sniffing about our club, looking for whoever has this answer to a problem that no club has ever been able to crack.

If only it were as simple as picking a correct lineup, eh? We won't know if the lineup is correct until we see how the game plays out. That's the benefit of sitting in the stands. We get to say "I'd have picked a different lineup" after we see how the game plays out. As is the case when we play Celtic at any point, the result of the game will largely be dictated by how Celtic play. If they come out on fire and they're right up for it it doesn't really matter what we do. The gulf in class and depth in squad usually means we'll see a Celtic win. We need them to be at less than their best, and us to be on our game.

Well, it's harmless depending on what the individual's definition of "shout what you want for 90 minutes" is, isn't it? I certainly don't think that buying a ticket is a licence to act like an absolute bellend and hurl abuse at someone that would get you arrested if you did it outside a football stadium. Show displeasure at the result, the performance, for sure. But far too many take it too far. Maybe that's a reflection on their own situation, but still, footballers don't sign up for that.

Crowds have been very decent, but there's a marked difference between 7,000 or so average attendance and 18,000 or so, isn't there? So there is that. We're one of the smaller clubs in the league. We're not Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen, Hearts or Hibs. Doesn't mean we can't be ambitious, which we certainly are, and we are absolutely entertaining. Teams like ourselves, Dundee, Falkirk, St Mirren, St Johnstone, Kilmarnock are always looking to secure safety as a priority. Once we do that, we should be looking to push for top six for sure. But as has been said elsewhere, it seems that there's been a bit of a feeling that we'd come into this season, and despite losing our manager, and our best players, that we'd be winning at Ibrox and making a charge for fourth as a continuation of last season. That was never likely. I still think we'll do okay. AJ will get things moving, and we'll see a challenge for top six and one or two players will stand out and hopefully bring us some good offers in the summer.

Because we're one of the smaller clubs in the league? Last season was amazing, but I think it was very much catching lightning in a bottle, especially when it came to our signings. I mean, if you think we should be starting each season expecting to finish 4th then fair enough, that's your choice. But you're probably setting yourself up for disappointment. We start every season in the same position for me. We look to ensure we're not fighting at the bottom of the table, then look to push for top six, and anything beyond that is a bonus. We certainly hope we can finish top six and even push for fourth, but we're not Hearts, we don't have their resources.

Might just be me, but I'll probably pay more attention to the guy who's actually being paid to do the job over the people who need to pay to watch him do said job.

It's still September. We can get a proper snapshot of how we're looking after Christmas.