Coronavirus and the Scottish Championship

[Ray Patterson]

1 minute ago, virginton said:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/scottish-government-warned-critical-championship-23178871

I have absolutely zero sympathy for club executives - and above all those at GMFC - who are getting the begging bowl out for public money. The idea of starting a season BCD was complete and utter lunacy from the beginning -  yet they lolloped along anyway, blithely assuming that they could get fans back in by winter (for a respiratory virus that, erm, spreads more effectively from people being indoors all the time), fob off their customers with tinpot streams and try to guilt-trip everyone into paying up anyway. The business model has been a disaster waiting to happen from the start and it is no surprise to see where we are right now.

Why do you sound glad that your club is on the verge of going under?

Very Weird Behaviour. 

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, ArabAuslander said:

Why do you sound glad that your club is on the verge of going under?

Very Weird Behaviour. 

I don't think that the club is 'on the verge of going under' and in our specific case the solution currently lies within reach of the feckless private family ownership. There is a fan group ready and willing to support the club financially: it has already been doing so for 16 months. If the current ownership prefer to pull the plug rather than either throw in their own money to cover their last six months before going out the door - or working with the fans group to secure additional investment right now - then they are clearly not credible long term partners for the club and the sooner that they are flushed out entirely, the better.

There is also a much larger point that Scottish football has had a truly abysmal pandemic and the continual shrieking from executives who want everyone but the club owners to fund a bailout for their own moronic crisis management is risible. Completely risible. If that is the face that Scottish professional football shows in the middle of a society-level crisis then quite frankly I don't see much worth saving. 

Edited December 17, 2020 by vikingTON

[Ray Patterson]

3 minutes ago, virginton said:

I don't think that the club is 'on the verge of going under' and in our specific case the solution currently lies within reach of the feckless private family ownership. There is a fan group ready and willing to support the club financially: it has already been doing so for 16 months. If the current ownership prefer to pull the plug rather than either throw in their own money to cover their last six months before going out the door - or working with the fans group to secure additional investment right now - then they are clearly not credible long term partners for the club and the sooner that they are flushed out entirely, the better.

There is also a much larger point that Scottish football has had a truly abysmal pandemic and the continual shrieking from executives who want everyone but the club owners to fund a bailout for their own moronic crisis management is risible. Completely risible. If that is the face that Scottish professional football shoes in the middle of a society-level crisis then quite frankly I don't see much worth saving. 

[vikingTON]

38 minutes ago, ArabAuslander said:

[Dunning1874]

The primary cause of Morton's predicament is the feckless negligence and incompetence of the so-called custodians of the club, who have seemingly set a budget based on something a long way removed from the worst case scenario, with absolutely no contingency planning. They allowed their manager to build a 22 man squad, allegedly things deteriorated to the point that the manager was covering expenses out of his pocket for a time, they chose not to reveal how dire the financial situation was until the manager forced their hand by resigning, then within 10 days of that we've got talk of the club possibly failing to pay wages this month and being right on the verge of bankruptcy. They have done nothing to try to mitigate the situation but they still want to limp on to the summer and do a runner with the club's assets.

The most obvious solution that is likely to protect the club now is for those owners to get themselves to f**k immediately ànd never darken our door again, allowing the fans to begin the work of cleaning up the absolute mess they've been left with straight away instead of these charlatans hanging around to do even more damage for another few months in the hope they can slither off with something in the end. They are the obstacle to saving the club.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Dunning1874

[DeeTillEhDeh]

I don't think that the club is 'on the verge of going under' and in our specific case the solution currently lies within reach of the feckless private family ownership. There is a fan group ready and willing to support the club financially: it has already been doing so for 16 months. If the current ownership prefer to pull the plug rather than either throw in their own money to cover their last six months before going out the door - or working with the fans group to secure additional investment right now - then they are clearly not credible long term partners for the club and the sooner that they are flushed out entirely, the better.
There is also a much larger point that Scottish football has had a truly abysmal pandemic and the continual shrieking from executives who want everyone but the club owners to fund a bailout for their own moronic crisis management is risible. Completely risible. If that is the face that Scottish professional football shows in the middle of a society-level crisis then quite frankly I don't see much worth saving. 

Be careful what you wish for with fan ownership.

[emoji53]

[Ludo*1]

How many instances of fan ownership have been a success? Are Motherwell fully fan owned? If so, they're the only one I can think of at the moment.

When we were fan owned, egos got in the way and we were worse run than pretty much any other point in living memory and that's some bloody going at a club like Dundee.

[Get_The_Subs_On]

I’m paying into MCT every month, but fan ownership is a worrying direction to take. You only need to spend 5 mins in a morton thread on here, on twitter,  or on the morton forum and it becomes a very frightening prospect. 

I’d much rather the Easedales took over the club. Putting a football club in the hands of fickle football fans doesn’t seem the best option for long term success or prosperity.

[Dunning1874]

Fan ownership and fan control aren't or at least don't have to be the same thing. You're involved in electing board members of the fans organisation, not actually taking votes on every commercial and footballing decision the club makes. There should be a board of the club doing that who are in charge of appointing competent people to salaried roles rather than parachuting out of their depth volunteer fans in and having infighting from forums and social media spilling into the running of the club.

Obviously cronyism, egos and incompetence are all significant risks which a fan organisation needs to carefully guard against, but in Morton's case we've also had two decades of complete failure to find competence in any area of the club under the current owners, culminating in now where they're apparently on the verge of bankrupting the club and their proposed best case scenario where they stave that off still intends to have them doing a runner with the assets in the summer and therefore leaving the club in a worse position than when they took over. It could hardly be any worse. 

In any case, fan ownership is definitely happening, barring the club ceasing to exist. The fan organisation is already there, and already has established fundraising mechanisms in place. The only question is when and how the takeover happens. The current owners have demonstrated that they are the biggest threat to the club's existence and the biggest impediment to fundraising to stave off this financial situation. The sensible answer then is for them to go immediately rather than limping to the summer as originally planned to satisfy their egos.

[Get_The_Subs_On]

Good response. I suppose in trying something different we need to be positive and optimistic. 

It makes sense that with the fans having more input into the club - and having a stake in it -  we are also more likely to get involved with initiatives that will help or raise money for the club, bringing in streams of revenue, or exploring how to increase the fan base better - stuff that the current regime have barely scratched the surface on. 

[DA Baracus]

25 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

Fan ownership and fan control aren't or at least don't have to be the same thing. You're involved in electing board members of the fans organisation, not actually taking votes on every commercial and footballing decision the club makes

There's some odd fans at East End who think that they should be getting to vote on every single thing. You often see them saying silly things like "Thought we were a fan owned club?!" or "Fan ran club my arse!" when things happen they don't like. There was a period last season when the club were on a terrible run of results and these dafties were shouting about how it was a disgrace that they couldn't sack Crawford.

[Enigma]

We have a fans director and it didn’t prevent any of the disastrous decisions we made in the past, hiring Gary Locke, loaning out Lewis Vaughan etc. Indeed AFAIK they were fairly complicit in some of those. You tend to get a certain type of person going for said position and it’s generally the best connected, not the most qualified, person who lands the role.

The ‘benevolent dictator’ is probably the best model for success and is pretty much what we have in place right now. What happens when John Sim shuffles off is anyone’s guess though.

For me fan ownership should really be a last resort when no other legitimate owners are forthcoming, which is pretty much where Morton are. Hopefully they get their hands on the club and we don’t see a ‘FC Morton of Greenock’ playing on a public park in the West of Scotland Conference C in 21-22.

[vikingTON]

9 hours ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

Be careful what you wish for with fan ownership.

 

2 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

How many instances of fan ownership have been a success? Are Motherwell fully fan owned? If so, they're the only one I can think of at the moment.

When we were fan owned, egos got in the way and we were worse run than pretty much any other point in living memory and that's some bloody going at a club like Dundee.

I'm not in favour of full fan ownership in the long run. Something similar to the German model (or failing that, the German investment at Dunfermline) is what I'd like to see in the long term. The fans' body needs to take initial control of the club in Morton's case. I'd then want it to accepting outside investment/directors by selling them a non-decisive stake in the club. 

The principle that has to remain in place is that part of the fans' money should be treated as investment capital to secure a greater stake in the club each year, rather than given straight to the board to spunk away on 21 players or a shan set of turnstiles (our previous white elephant project). 

Edited December 17, 2020 by vikingTON

[Ludo*1]

36 minutes ago, Enigma said:

We have a fans director and it didn’t prevent any of the disastrous decisions we made in the past, hiring Gary Locke, loaning out Lewis Vaughan etc. Indeed AFAIK they were fairly complicit in some of those. You tend to get a certain type of person going for said position and it’s generally the best connected, not the most qualified, person who lands the role.

The ‘benevolent dictator’ is probably the best model for success and is pretty much what we have in place right now. What happens when John Sim shuffles off is anyone’s guess though.

For me fan ownership should really be a last resort when no other legitimate owners are forthcoming, which is pretty much where Morton are. Hopefully they get their hands on the club and we don’t see a ‘FC Morton of Greenock’ playing on a public park in the West of Scotland Conference C in 21-22.

Yep, this. It's not saying much, but Tim Keyes has been the best owner we've had in my lifetime. John Nelms pretty much shuns any fans rep we have and is criticised quite a lot for that, but some of the stuff our previous fan reps have came away with, it is really no surprise.

[stu2910]

I'm not in favour of full fan ownership in the long run. Something similar to the German model (or failing that, the German investment at Dunfermline) is what I'd like to see in the long term. The fans' body needs to take initial control of the club in Morton's case. I'd then want it to accepting outside investment/directors by selling them a non-decisive stake in the club. 
The principle that has to remain in place is that part of the fans' money should be treated as investment capital to secure a greater stake in the club each year, rather than given straight to the board to spunk away on 21 players or a shan set of turnstiles (our previous white elephant project). 

Think the continued financing is one of the major issues for fan ownership, depending on the level of the club. In Dundee’s case, despite the larger fan base than many rivals, there is unlikely to be the cash there to sustain unsuccessful promotion challenges or fights against relegation from the top flight. Unless of course there are significant cup runs and player sales.

It can work fine in the first few years where there is a surge of optimism and an acceptance that improvements will take time, but if in 2023/24 Morton find themselves vying with Forfar and Clyde to desperately try to stay in League 1, I would imagine the funding issue will become the focus again. It’s maybe not the most sustainable way to run a club, but we all have ideas of what our club should be and it’s not achieving that then the structure won’t last long.

In the end Dundee were approached by a buyer rather than seeking one out but it’s always a lottery how that will turn out. On the pitch has certainly been interesting in the past 7 years, even if in the end we’ve achieved the square root of diddly squat, at best. Off the pitch though we are probably as well run now as at any point in the past 50 years...admittedly though there isn’t much of a standard to beat.

On another note, any thoughts who the other clubs would likely be? Despite the obvious historical failings of all 3, I’d think Dundee, Hearts and Dunfermline will be ok, while Arbroath are unlikely to be running much of a loss. ICT maybe? QOS?

[RossBFaeDundee]

You'd have to imagine QoS would be one of the teams, and ICT's struggles in the last year or so brings them to my mind as well. It's a Keith Jackson article, so hopefully there are some elements of hyperbole in there, don't want any clubs having it this bad.

[Homer Thompson]

Someone better get on the phone to Queens and tell them they're about to go under, cause I don't think they know about it.

It's amazing to see people still believing anything Keith Jackson writes

[parsforlife]

7 minutes ago, Mr X said:

Someone better get on the phone to Queens and tell them they're about to go under, cause I don't think they know about it.

It's amazing to see people still believing anything Keith Jackson writes

He’s basically read Morton’s statement on Hopkin leaving and spun a story based on that,  he doesn’t have any inside information.

Edited December 17, 2020 by parsforlife

[Skyline Drifter]

13 hours ago, virginton said:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/scottish-government-warned-critical-championship-23178871

I have absolutely zero sympathy for club executives - and above all those at GMFC - who are getting the begging bowl out for public money. The idea of starting a season BCD was complete and utter lunacy from the beginning -  yet they lolloped along anyway, blithely assuming that they could get fans back in by winter (for a respiratory virus that, erm, spreads more effectively from people being indoors all the time), fob off their customers with tinpot streams and try to guilt-trip everyone into paying up anyway. The business model has been a disaster waiting to happen from the start and it is no surprise to see where we are right now.

Typical Daily Record article. Lot of speculation and unnamed sources with no facts other than Morton who already publicly admitted they have problems. 3 or 4 clubs "desperately scrambling around"? Broadly hinted to  be the ones overpaying to get promotion. Inverness an obvious possibility for another, they had issues last year already. Otherwise? Dundee maybe? Surely not Hearts or Dunfermline. Ayr said they'd be fine for a year or so I think and were handing out 2 year contracts. Raith? Probably not bracketed as chasing promotion to the premier.

Far from convinced the Championship share of £10m which is being shared not only among 30 SPFL clubs but also the womens game and presumably Juniors and senior non league sides too is going to be some sort of panacea either. What's that going to be per club? I assume it will likely be based on some sort of average attendance stat. For most of the clubs being hinted at that probably won't cover a month's payroll. Still think the lower Leagues came back far too soon. They would have been better advised to sit still till January.

Edited December 17, 2020 by Skyline Drifter

[Skyline Drifter]

4 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

How many instances of fan ownership have been a success? Are Motherwell fully fan owned? If so, they're the only one I can think of at the moment.

When we were fan owned, egos got in the way and we were worse run than pretty much any other point in living memory and that's some bloody going at a club like Dundee.

Fan ownership doesn't work and never will work in a proper business environment. It will work for community clubs at a lower league level, probably not even League 1 but League 2 / Lowland. Once bigger money, bigger gates, bigger wages, etc hit the table it doesn't. Clubs like Motherwell and Hearts, even Dunfermline until recently, claim to be "fan owned" but they aren't really. They are a sort of hybrid model where the fans are bankrolling to a major extent but business-people are still running things and propping things up in the background. Even then the likes of Dunfermline and Dundee have moved away from it.