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We Need To Talk About Sustainability


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https://www.hamiltonacciesfc.co.uk/club-statement-compensation-tribunal/

 

Remember that the current BoD says that player sales are integral to Morton becoming sustainable. If anyone's not been following the Lewis Ferguson/Aberdeen saga, the upshot is that a young player left Accies under freedom of contract, the clubs could not agree on a compensation fee, so it went to a tribunal. By some accounts, Accies got less than a third of what they asked for originally. Whether or not it's an appropriate amount is largely beside the point here: the point instead is twofold:

 

1) Player power - and agent power - is only going to get more and more pronounced as time goes on, and clubs unable to give out long-term contracts will not be able to rely on this golden egg for much longer. Ferguson was free to leave, he wanted to leave, and a bigger club was waiting. Possession is nine tenths of the law and he's an Aberdeen player - anything Accies get is mere details.

 

2) The lack of money in the Scottish game means that any tribunal convened is likely to low-ball the eventual fee, and try to boost the cost with sell-ons. Sell-ons can be extremely lucrative but also (in the case of Hendrie from Accies to West Ham) result in no money at all.

 

We've had two highly-rated youngsters leave the club this summer in the form of Jai Quitongo and Mark Russell. I believe we agreed a nominal fee with Falkirk for Russell, so no tribunal is required, and the fee put the 'no' in 'nominal'. Quitongo, reading between the lines, we will barely seek compensation for, if he signs for another Scottish club.

 

I believe the only way we can make this sustainability thing work is by giving out longer contracts, which is a huge risk and we probably shouldn't do it as a result. What we should be doing is getting cast-offs from other youth systems, preferably from England, France, Portugal, other places where they train youngsters well.

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If we have actually let Jai go for free then questions must be asked. Our most promising youth player being allowed to waltz out the door for fuck all goes completely against the whole 'youth and sustainability' approach. If anything I hope we at least negotiate a sell-on fee. 

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Speaking of which...it speaks volumes that he hasn't got another gig yet.

 

He will wind up somewhere in the Championship at some point this season. I don't think Thistle will sack Archibald, but he could quite conceivably end up there if that does happen. 

You address me by my proper title, you little bollocks! 


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There's already a lot of scepticism over the board, especially the Chief Executive, regarding their understanding and approach to being sustainable through youth development. I know the club have a desire for confidentiality like all others - how often is a transfer fee actually publicised now? - but they could really do with clarifying the Russell situation.

 

If they have genuinely allowed Mark Russell to leave without as much as five figure fee or sell on clause - a youth product who we were entitled to compensation for, a player who had played more than 150 games for the club and we'd previously had interest from clubs at a higher level for - it makes an absolute mockery of the club's strategy and serious questions will need to be asked of Warren Hawke.

 

While I appreciate that they may not be able to share specific figures, they should say something. If it's not true that we let him go for a couple of magic beans, they can clarify that's not the case to prevent rumours and discontent spreading among the support after a summer which has been broadly positive. If we did contrive to let him go for nothing, they can explain how they're going to stop the same thing happening again.

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Oh Lord, Brian Wake

 

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Speaking of which...it speaks volumes that he hasn't got another gig yet.

Unless you count "Open all mics".

McGhee needs some support, there's no-one backing him up.
Hayes playing it forward, Bell being forced to do it all alone, now forward from Marr, here's Ritchie, still Andy Ritchie, look at the control...

That is a marvellous goal from Andy Ritchie. Twenty minutes on the clock and Morton's supporters come alive. A goal which epitomises the control, the arrogance, the cheek of Andy Ritchie.

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While I agree with every single point of the opening post, to play devil's advocate could Hamilton not have sold Ferguson last summer for a good price and made their youth academy more sustainable rather than lose them for peanuts at a tribunal?

 

Even the best clubs in the world are forced to sell their best players the summer before they run out of contract, so for top young talents in scotland there should still be opportunities to make money from them.

Good people will do good things, bad people will do bad things, but only with religion do good people do bad things!

 

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He will wind up somewhere in the Championship at some point this season. I don't think Thistle will sack Archibald, but he could quite conceivably end up there if that does happen.

 

I reckon Partick will be his most likely destination too.

*insert signature here*

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While I agree with every single point of the opening post, to play devil's advocate could Hamilton not have sold Ferguson last summer for a good price and made their youth academy more sustainable rather than lose them for peanuts at a tribunal?

 

Even the best clubs in the world are forced to sell their best players the summer before they run out of contract, so for top young talents in scotland there should still be opportunities to make money from them.

 

Yes, to be sure, Hamilton haven't covered themselves with glory here, and indeed they waited until comparatively late in the day to offer him a contract, even though it was clear he was a player. But that's another risk. A club like Hamilton, with a fairly decent track record in this sphere (bank scam notwithstanding), screwed the pooch here and will get little reward for it. Morton, who have (to put it politely) a fairly mixed track record with things like business and negotiation, don't have that institutional knowledge and will easily be taken advantage of.
 
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And to be clear, I don't expect the club to disclose fees and/or sell-ons, but I'm going off what I've read and heard from Falkirk fans in the case of Russell, and the "free to join another club"* line on the official site about Quitongo.
 
*which of course he already was, the day his contract ran out, and he was free to sign a pre-contract six months prior to that. The rules around compensation in no way preclude a player from signing a contract with another club while his original club's offer is still pending. They are explicit about that.

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A club of our size should be investing in a top-of-the-range scouting network, as opposed to a second tier youth system. It's far more effective and cost-efficient. We've picked up players like Tidser, Quitongo and Murdoch as young cast-offs from youth systems much bigger and better than ours. We've picked up players like Kilday, Lamie and Gaston by scouring the lower leagues for young talent. Inverness under Butcher, and more recently Motherwell, have had excellent returns from signing up non-league talents from England. 


 


If we could take on four full-time scouts, utilising a combination of desk-based and traditional scouting methods, it would be a far more fruitful and efficient method of sourcing players than a youth system. If the club went as far as appointing a Director of Football to oversee the whole thing and ensure an effective link between the scouting system and the dugout then I wouldn't be against it. With the rise in database player profiles, it also makes it far easier to scout targets in Europe and beyond. I would rather see Morton implement this sort of model, rather than a youth system in direct competition with bigger and more established youth systems.


You address me by my proper title, you little bollocks! 


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The only route to sustainability is to get players tied down to 2 or 3 year contracts at the earliest sign that they can play first team football here. Why would a player with potential sign that length of deal? Incentivise the player to play for a transfer fee by including a percentage to the player and a percentage of a sell-on clause percentage.

 

E.g. player with 2 years on a contract sells for £300k, 15% to the player £255k/£45k. Player moves on for £600k, 10% to Morton £60k, 5% to the player £30k.

Sell on percentages are crucial, where players are moving on to a more lucrative shop window than Morton. In some cases we might be aswell giving the player away to secure a decent sell on clause.

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The old business model whereby clubs like morton sold players for large fees and financed the business from the transfer fees was destroyed overnight by Bosman.  The only way to do that now is to sell players early, because if you wait even until 6 months before the end of their contract, the buying club can just sit and wait and get the player more or less for free.

 

Ironic that we had only a few players on 2 year contracts and two of them are Thomson & McHugh.  Spectacularly bad judgement there - why on earth are these mediocrities getting more than a year, and even that would be about 11 months too long?

"Any nation given the opportunity to regain its national sovereignty and which then rejects it is so far beneath contempt that it is hard to put words to it."

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Quitongo is very likely to go to another Championship Club/Lower premiership and do very well and earn said club a large sum  + sell on whilst we look on.

 

If it was very likely that he'd do both then he'd have already left Morton 15 months ago - his injury record and lack of games is the reason why he's been at this level for s long. Even as a free agent a club would be taking a gamble that would have a relatively high chance of failure - as did our gamble of offering him a deal last summer. 

The site is supposed to be a place for the extended 'family' of Morton supporters - having an affinity with people that you don't know, because you share a love of your local football club. It's not supposed to be about point scoring and showing how 'clever' or 'funny' you are, or just being downright rude and offensive to people you don't know, because you can get away with it. Unfortunately, it seems the classic case of people who have little standing/presence in real life, use this forum as a way of making themselves feel as if they are something. It's sad, and I've said that before..

 

So, having been on Morton forums for about 15 years I guess, I've had enough... well done t*ssers, another Morton supporter driven away. You can all feel happy at how 'clever' you are

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The idea that the club could get sustainable quick and deliver success by aping what a dozen other clubs have already been doing for years had as much logic to it as spunking a six-figure sum on a set of shan, white elephant turnstiles. It should be consigned to the sea along with the chief executive who signed off on those ideas. 

 

GMFC can only punch to or above its weight by doing something different. It was innovation in the transfer market - bringing in Scandinavian players - that the club was best known for around fifty years ago. Another set of ambitious signings from Finland in the mid-1990s were key to immediately restoring the club's status after years of gradual decay. There are plenty of places in eastern Europe for example where equivalent Championship-level players - or better - are playing for clubs that can only dream of the resources Morton can offer: the Scottish Championship is not actually the lowest diddy tinpot league in a European context. Instead of hoping that Braeside is an undiscovered pool of exceptional talent, we should be looking to regions of tens of millions of people and thousands of professional players that almost every Scottish club ignores. 

The site is supposed to be a place for the extended 'family' of Morton supporters - having an affinity with people that you don't know, because you share a love of your local football club. It's not supposed to be about point scoring and showing how 'clever' or 'funny' you are, or just being downright rude and offensive to people you don't know, because you can get away with it. Unfortunately, it seems the classic case of people who have little standing/presence in real life, use this forum as a way of making themselves feel as if they are something. It's sad, and I've said that before..

 

So, having been on Morton forums for about 15 years I guess, I've had enough... well done t*ssers, another Morton supporter driven away. You can all feel happy at how 'clever' you are

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