steelboy

He doesn't just want to buy a club though. He wants to buy a debt free club for free.

I can't wait to see all "We'll never be asked to give up majority control" people switching to "well 35% is still a good shareholding" overnight. It's a certainty.

Aye. Our latest accounts show 6m in turnover and 5m in wages. Weir said player wages are 50% of turn over so we are spending 3m a year (or 58k a week) on players. That's plenty. This season we have had 9 or 10 deadweight contracts and are still in the mix for the top 6. The budget is totally fine and even if we see an increase it's not going to bridge us to the level of Hearts, Hibs and Aberdeen.

I meant whoever leaked to Gavin McCafferty is standing up for fan ownership. Nick McPheat asked Barmack if he wanted majority control and he didn't deny it.

Barmack is giving interviews to the BBC about the deal so I'm glad someone is standing up for fan ownership even if they can't put their name to it. Keep the leaks coming

He talks about us having extra costs relating to the park and possibly match day costs being recorded differently. The point still stands that we have spent significantly more than Kilmarnock during the fan ownership period. McCafferty's original point was that we don't need "transformational investment" as was being pushed by Weir, McMahon and their PR firm.

Where was this?

Barmack gave an interview where he was asked - by a Motherwell fan - if he intended to take majority control. He answered the question so it's fair enough if someone at the club or Society feels his answer was dishonest and wants to set the record straight.

If anyone has leaked it must be someone at the club or the Society. Journalists don't need permission to publish leaked info. It happens every single day.

Well for a start being "an ex-VP of Netflix" means fuck all to me. I had never heard of this guy until last week so i'm obviously going to be sceptical. I'll take the word of long time Motherwell fans ahead of some Californian Tech guy, that's just sensible.

The info about wages is correct. We have spent a lot more than Kilmarnock which is a good thing.

His father is no longer involved with the Well Society board and neither is Gavin McCafferty so neither of the two of them aren't bound by anything. This is just standard journalism. It's telling us we're going to be asked to give up majority control, that Douglas Dickie is the one driving it (big surprise there) and that the Society has roughly £700,000 in the bank. It's a good article.

It's being published by a reputable journalist who is a huge Motherwell fan. Why not take him at his word?

Journalist Gavin McCafferty who's father was the first Well Society chairman confirming that we will be asked to give up majority control.

We've got everything to lose. Literally. It's ours and we can lose it. It's not about whether these people are Bond villains or not. It's about the long term future of the club, maybe these people won't fuck us over but they might sell up in a few years and the next owner could be anyone. It took less than four years for Boyle to pull the plug due to his other businesses. Les gave up after two years due to unforeseen health problems. Things can change quickly when you are reliant on one person.

They will just say it's still 'empowered' with 30% or whatever.

Looking at social media and there are the usual rosters talking about "global exposure" and "massive investment". What planet are those people living on? Look at the games the last two nights, why would anyone in another country want to watch us over that standard of football?

He also didn't say no to being the majority shareholder. Obviously any new owner would want to keep the Society involved. It would be very expensive to get rid of it. The fans being the majority shareholder has to be the red line.

The Turnbull money wasn't a fluke. We invested in our academy and got the reward. It's the same with Max Johnston, Allan Campbell, Chris Cadden, James Scott and Jake Hastie. We've had other players who we've had training compensation for who didn't even make the first team. It's at the core of the club.

7 continuous years in the top flight and £2 million in the black. It does work and it is sustainable.

Bringing players through is part of our business model. We have Lennon Miller now, there will be more. Focusing on 12 month cycles rather than the medium term would be cutting our own throat. A lot of annual losses over the years have just been investing the profits from the previous year.

I agree with this and whenever (or possibly if) we have a Society meeting there are going to be a lot of questions asked about exactly that. Going back to the very start of the Society one of the first things that happened was the Society bought 5% of the club for £250,000 without informing the members which led to complaints, a meeting and new rules being put in place. The share sale recently apparently involved selling 5% of the club for £10,000 which is hugely undervalued. My back of a fag packet calculations put this at a 90% discount for the buyers. I'm sure i'm not the only member who wants to know why this is considered beneficial for the membership and who exactly benefitted from the discounted sale.

That's not true though. These are the figures during the period of fan ownership so far. When you compare it to other clubs during the same period we have done exceptionally well. According to Derek Weir at the AGM we are likely to break even this season which is impressive considering the dead weight in the playing squad. 16/17: (£104,000) 17/18: £1,720,000 18/19: (£436,000) 19/20: £346,590 20/21: £3,575,615 21/22: (£1,082,000) 22/23: (£1,605,000) Net profit: £2,415,205

Giving up transfer income would be crazy unless we are getting some kind of transformative investment on the playing side. It would just be giving away an income stream for nothing in return. Apart from having some glamour due to be in the entertainment industry I don't understand why are meant to be impressed by this guy. He's never been involved in professional sport before nevermind football, has never lived in Scotland and doesn't seem to be that wealthy. All that seems to have happened is that he's discovered a bunch of mugs who might give him millions of pounds worth of assets at a huge discount.

I don't see how you could possibly have more say as a small shareholder than as a Society member? Everyone is equal in the Society, it gives us a legal structure to pool our resources, no one can take money out of it and it could easily outlive most of us.