The Greenock Morton Thread - It's Better Than Yours

[RossBFaeDundee]

Looking forward to seeing who this signing is after such a long build-up.

[The Real Saints]

The 'spur' thing makes me think it'll be a young Tottenham player who has been part of a Champions League squad. Jamie Bowden, George Marsh or Kazaiah Sterling are my guesses.

Edited February 1, 2021 by The Real Saints

[callum-ayr]

I think I speak for all fans when I say, I hope this is going to be a hilariously pish player. 

[Jan Vojáček]

7 minutes ago, The Real Saints said:

The 'spur' thing makes me think it'll be a young Tottenham player who has been part of a Champions League squad. Jamie Bowden, George Marsh or Kazaiah Sterling are my guesses.

You're good.

[The Real Saints]

Kazaiah Sterling it is. 

[RandomGuy.]

Hes excellent on Football Manager.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

3 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Hes excellent on Football Manager.

That’s a market we’ve been slow to tap...

He is a forward, though... wonder where he’ll sit on the spectrum between Troy Parrott and Kudus Oyenuga...

Edited to add: just had a look at the scouting reel... and I’ll stick my neck out and say he might just be a wee notch or two better than the amiable but hopeless Kudus (Troy can rest easy, lol). Big question is: will he be an upgrade on the amiable but hopeless Kalvin Orsi? Think it might turn on whether the boy has more or less chucked it or still sees himself having a career in football...

Edited February 1, 2021 by The Ghost of B A R P

[vikingTON]

Literally any dung footballer can develop wildly misleading highlights on video. Given the piss-poor support provided by the ownership and all past experience, Sterling will be pre-emptively filed in the 'ringer' category until performances suggest otherwise.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

5 hours ago, virginton said:

Literally any dung footballer can develop wildly misleading highlights on video. Given the piss-poor support provided by the ownership and all past experience, Sterling will be pre-emptively filed in the 'ringer' category until performances suggest otherwise.

There’s actually very little to go on in the scouting reel, which is a worry in itself.

I’m basing the ‘better than Kudus’ thing on basic stuff like the way he controls the ball and moves. It is not a high bar...

[Rudolph Hucker]

7 hours ago, virginton said:

Literally any dung footballer can develop wildly misleading highlights on video. Given the piss-poor support provided by the ownership and all past experience, Sterling will be pre-emptively filed in the 'ringer' category until performances suggest otherwise.

^^^  looks like somebody shat in vt's porridge yet again.......  

[CapitalDiamond]

Sake guys, came on here to see all the Ray McKinnon snake in Greenock memes. Where are they?!

[Jamie_M]

39 minutes ago, CapitalDiamond said:

Sake guys, came on here to see all the Ray McKinnon snake in Greenock memes. Where are they?!

Twitter.

[JustOneCornetto]

We have a back up goalie at last, Jamie Butler from English non league, who will also double up as goalkeeper coach. Not available tomorrow due to Covid testing protocol.

[Dunning1874]

Assuming all Morton fans have seen it already and this thread is dead these days, but in case anyone has missed it on the Morton forum or social media here's the latest update from MCT:

https://mortonclubtogether.com/2021/02/14/1312/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Without repeating my several paragraphs long posts elsewhere, it'll suffice to say that Golden Casket can do one. They must be ecstatic that fans aren't allowed at games to hound them.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

Not sure if any Morton supporters are still looking in here, but I thought it might be worth posting my response to the MCT consultation. There might be good reasons this won't fly, but it has to be worth investigating, because neither of the two options currently on the table is any use.

 

Option 1 clearly leaves question marks over the ground in the longer term, because, whatever good will may be in play at this stage, no one can guarantee the course of future events. Option 2 doesn't seem to provide a secure enough basis for fan ownership for more or less the same reasons, i.e. it leaves in place at least the possibility that, in changed circumstances, a 'paper'  debt might become a real debt that has to be dealt with.

My view is that MCT should investigate, if it hasn't already done so, the possibility of persuading  Golden Casket to place the ground in a protective trust. This would achieve the same effect as option 1, namely that the club would be protected from any future insolvency event. The terms of the trust could specify that the ground could only be used by GMFC (and only sold to facilitate GMFC moving to a new ground at some point in the future).

There would clearly be significant legal detail to be agreed on, a process for nominating trustees etc, the precise terms of the trust, and perhaps the possibility of separating the car park from the ground to leave GC with some kind of asset (over and above MCT contributions to date); but the idea in general seems to me one the few ways -- if not the only way -- out of the current stalemate.

[Skyline Drifter]

1 hour ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Not sure if any Morton supporters are still looking in here, but I thought it might be worth posting my response to the MCT consultation. There might be good reasons this won't fly, but it has to be worth investigating, because neither of the two options currently on the table is any use.

 

Option 1 clearly leaves question marks over the ground in the longer term, because, whatever good will may be in play at this stage, no one can guarantee the course of future events. Option 2 doesn't seem to provide a secure enough basis for fan ownership for more or less the same reasons, i.e. it leaves in place at least the possibility that, in changed circumstances, a 'paper'  debt might become a real debt that has to be dealt with.

My view is that MCT should investigate, if it hasn't already done so, the possibility of persuading  Golden Casket to place the ground in a protective trust. This would achieve the same effect as option 1, namely that the club would be protected from any future insolvency event. The terms of the trust could specify that the ground could only be used by GMFC (and only sold to facilitate GMFC moving to a new ground at some point in the future).

There would clearly be significant legal detail to be agreed on, a process for nominating trustees etc, the precise terms of the trust, and perhaps the possibility of separating the car park from the ground to leave GC with some kind of asset (over and above MCT contributions to date); but the idea in general seems to me one the few ways -- if not the only way -- out of the current stalemate.

Mmm. I'm not really sure what's in it for Golden Casket to agree to your "protective trust" arrangement? Indeed I'm not really clear on what great benefit there is to the club either. Basically you have an option on the table to own the ground but have £2m of debt or you can lose ownership of the ground and have zero debt. You are suggesting an option 3 where the ground is transferred to an independent 3rd party and you have (presumably) zero debt.  The devil will be in the detail but I'm not really seeing what benefit there is to it for anyone? Assuming that the existing Option 1 could have a built in "1st option to buy" clause as it states might be achievable, what's the benefit of the independent trust? It's just a needless 3rd party to achieve the same thing surely? I'm assuming the rent level will have some sort of definitive clause in Option 1 already and that the lease will be something effectively ultra long term (999 year lease or something).

Ultimately, if the lease is long term and the rent is securely set at whatever nominal sum it is then it doesn't really matter who owns it unless the club goes out of existence or chooses to leave it.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

2 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

Mmm. I'm not really sure what's in it for Golden Casket to agree to your "protective trust" arrangement? Indeed I'm not really clear on what great benefit there is to the club either. Basically you have an option on the table to own the ground but have £2m of debt or you can lose ownership of the ground and have zero debt. You are suggesting an option 3 where the ground is transferred to an independent 3rd party and you have (presumably) zero debt.  The devil will be in the detail but I'm not really seeing what benefit there is to it for anyone? Assuming that the existing Option 1 could have a built in "1st option to buy" clause as it states might be achievable, what's the benefit of the independent trust? It's just a needless 3rd party to achieve the same thing surely? I'm assuming the rent level will have some sort of definitive clause in Option 1 already and that the lease will be something effectively ultra long term (999 year lease or something).

Ultimately, if the lease is long term and the rent is securely set at whatever nominal sum it is then it doesn't really matter who owns it unless the club goes out of existence or chooses to leave it.

Yes... but a properly framed trust is legally bulletproof. All other means of protecting the ground rely on someone’s goodwill at some future point (and that someone will be persons unknown after a certain amount of time has passed, e.g. any future owners of GC).

My point is really that, if GC are willing to make guarantees about future ownership, why not do that in a way that addresses the very real disquiet among the supporters about them retaining the ground (on whatever ‘protected’ basis).

Not sure if you can do a 999-yr lease, but that might be another way of assuring this. I was careful to say the trust isn’t necessarily the only way of doing it... but I do think it’s the most satisfactory.

[Dunning1874]

The potential compromises I would see as acceptable from this position are all dependent on Golden Casket showing some good faith in negotiations, which has seemingly been completely absent from them so far.

Golden Casket take ownership of the stadium as per Option 1 in return for writing off the outstanding debt and the car park remaining with GMFC, but let to buy arrangement is put in place along with it. This means that not only are guarantees built into the lease as proposed meaning the stadium and land can't be sold to a third party without GMFC's agreement and the rent cannot be increased, but after X number of years and Y amount of money ownership passes back to GMFC. That amount of money will be something remotely in touch with reality, not £2M.

An amended option 2 where the stadium and car park remain with GMFC but there remains a debt to be repaid to Golden Casket. If they're turning round and saying they won't fully write off the debt that's accumulated as a consequence of their decades of incompetence, - as they have explicitly promised for several years - then they aren't getting to asset strip the club while they're at it and swagger off with an asset for free as well. The sheer brass neck and arrogance of even proposing it is staggering.

Along with this option, the level of debt outstanding to be repaid should be no more than £500K. They're currently proposing that £2M of debt remains on the books. That's absolutely insane. When I heard a proposal amounting to 'keep the stadium but it means there's some debt to be repaid' had been made I thought that could be a fair enough compromise, then reading it I saw the figure of £2M and I was stunned.

Some background that fans of other clubs may be unaware of on this. When MCT were first formed they entered an agreement to purchase a 15% stake in the club; this was before any formal takeover was on the table. Under the terms of that 15% agreement, £500K of debt would be written off immediately, then for every £100K MCT put into the club a further £500K would be written off. This appeared to be an excellent deal for GMFC, with Golden Casket making a sacrifice of debt owed to them that showed a genuine concern for the club and interest in protecting Morton's future.

At the time the deal was signed the debt had stood at £2.5M, so was immediately reduced to £2M. £100K has since been delivered, reducing to £1.5M. They're on course for a further £100K to be delivered this summer, therefore reducing to £1M preceding the takeover. With that in mind, does someone want to tell me how the f**k the debt is going to stand at two million pounds?

A closed door season has obviously presented gigantic financial challenges, but if we've somehow managed to effectively make a loss of one million pounds in a little over 18 months since the debt reduction began, thus increasing the debt to Golden Casket more or less back to where we started, then the only explanation is that David Hopkin was actually working with the biggest budget since Jim McInally was in charge. I simply don't believe that figure for a second. It's transparently bullshit, and that's before taking into account the £500K of free money the club have been given courtesy of the taxpayer.

GMFC does not owe Golden Casket £2M and they're not getting £2M. It hadn't even crossed my mind that the outstanding debt could possibly be any higher than £1M by the time of the takeover. They can do one if they think they're getting anything like that. Come up with a figure that has the slightest relationship with reality and then we can talk about some level of debt remaining in place in return for the assets remaining with the club; that's all the assets, not just one of them.

The third compromise is that Golden Casket do take ownership of the car park and the car park alone. I would like that land to remain with the club and it could be put to much better use in the long term if money was ever found to do something with it such as building a training facility (something of that scale is a pipe dream at the moment obviously) but as a trade off for getting a debt free club owning the stadium it'd be a reasonable compromise to come to.

That Golden Casket's negotiating position is to asset strip the club for the car park AND either strip another asset along with it or saddle the club with a massively inflated total of debt just tells us nothing they're doing here is in good faith, and that bad faith attitude shows exactly why we can't risk them owning the stadium or having a debt they could call in at any time. They have nothing but bad intentions.

[Skyline Drifter]

9 hours ago, The Ghost of B A R P said:

Yes... but a properly framed trust is legally bulletproof. All other means of protecting the ground rely on someone’s goodwill at some future point (and that someone will be persons unknown after a certain amount of time has passed, e.g. any future owners of GC).

My point is really that, if GC are willing to make guarantees about future ownership, why not do that in a way that addresses the very real disquiet among the supporters about them retaining the ground (on whatever ‘protected’ basis).

Not sure if you can do a 999-yr lease, but that might be another way of assuring this. I was careful to say the trust isn’t necessarily the only way of doing it... but I do think it’s the most satisfactory.

A properly framed long term lease is equally bulletproof. And it's certainly possible to get a 999 year lease. The lease Tesco had of the supermarket on the land at Palmerston was a 999 year lease that took an awful lot of negotiation and goodwill (and assistance from the local Council) to get back into the club so we could convert it to the QoS Arena instead of remaining in Tesco's land bank for a millennium.

I just think your protective trust idea is a completely needless (and potentially costly) layer of bureaucracy that doesn't achieve anything at all that can't be achieved by a properly framed lease and fundamentally only goes part of the way to placating people who don't actually understand the legalities of it as an optical gesture. 

[The Ghost of B A R P]

6 hours ago, Skyline Drifter said:

A properly framed long term lease is equally bulletproof. And it's certainly possible to get a 999 year lease. The lease Tesco had of the supermarket on the land at Palmerston was a 999 year lease that took an awful lot of negotiation and goodwill (and assistance from the local Council) to get back into the club so we could convert it to the QoS Arena instead of remaining in Tesco's land bank for a millennium.

I just think your protective trust idea is a completely needless (and potentially costly) layer of bureaucracy that doesn't achieve anything at all that can't be achieved by a properly framed lease and fundamentally only goes part of the way to placating people who don't actually understand the legalities of it as an optical gesture. 

Glad to hear an extreme long-term lease is possible, but I'd be very wary of describing any legal obligation conceived over that period of time as 'bulletproof'. You seem to confirm that yourself by acknowledging that the lease Tesco had on land adjacent to Palmerston was in fact varied when circumstances changed.

One key advantage of proposing a trust is that it (potentially) exposes any bad faith on the part of GC, as Dunning says above. If they are genuine in their claim that the option 1 proposal is motivated primarily by a desire to protect both club and ground (as opposed to the retention of an asset, the value of which might be realised at a later date), then the question is: so you don't object, then, to putting the ground in trust, thereby absolutely guaranteeing the outcome you claim to want to see?

The point about bureaucracy is a total red herring, btw: there's no more 'bureaucracy' involved in setting up and maintaining a trust than there would be setting up the lease/guarantee arrangement you describe.

Bound to say also (before other Morton supporters do) your point about 'placating people who don't actually understand the legalities' is a bit off; there are plenty of people among the Morton support who understand the legalities and dynamics of this situation all too well.

Whether it's a trust or some other legal arrangement, and again as Dunning says above, there has to be some kind of third way here, because option 1 leaves the ground in the hands, at least formally and legally, of an entity that has lost the confidence of the support... and there's no guarantee it will always be in the hands of that same entity. Option 2 raises all sorts of questions about the 'status' of the debt; I can't imagine the figure that would meet Dunning's 'slightest relationship with reality test... maybe twenty pence, off the top of my head?

A trust or something similar, under which the ground is legally owned by an entity that exists solely for the purpose of owning and safeguarding the ground, has to be a better option. And if GC won't agree to that, the question is 'why?'