TRVMP

MLS salaries are all publicly available because it's a union shop. Cupps' guarantees salary is $116k for the season, or around 88,000 GBP. Not sure if he'll have bonuses on top of that. Their salary is season-based and not exactly annual but if we just take it as 52 weeks for the fun of it, that's about 1,700 GBP a week, in other words he'd most likely be our top earner. So I think we can take it as given that he's here almost purely for experience and not because Chicago were trying to shift his wage.

Their regular season runs through to mid-November. Chicago will qualify for the playoffs so potentially they could be playing almost as long as us, through to the week before Christmas. Hopefully none of their starters get injured and he can stay here.

If we can serve as a shop window for these guys then it's win-win.

This is what I expect: https://themortonforum.com/forum/index.php?/forums/topic/44664-gmfc-fighting-fund/page/3/#findComment-1189941

It's the club's responsibility - despite their weaselly claims that this is a "fan led" initiative, it's their money, raised for and by them, on their accounts and on their Fanbase facility - to offer clarity, and none is forthcoming.

Buying time and discretionary spending are incompatible. We shouldn't be spending a single penny beyond our existing obligations. The exact situation you're describing with Dalrada is the exact situation that is occurring right now if we sign any more loan players. (I'll assume we had the dressing room fixes already booked or something, although it wouldn't surprise me if we didn't.)

Our existing generous sponsor is in default and we spent several months working with another potential investor who has now withdrawn. If the magnificent 10 (conspicuous by their absence as they let the mug punter fans pay the rent for a few more weeks) falls through for whatever reason, once again there is no plan whatsoever for how we handle that situation. If the words "Fighting Fund" mean anything, they mean to fight for the survival of the club, not simply to carry on as normal and sign players and make little cosmetic improvements to the changing rooms. But this has been handled so terribly that on the one hand we're in dire enough straits to require one, but also the situation's so normal we can just do capex and sign players. Again, on the current trajectory, we don't know when the next deadline is after November. If we don't have investment after November, my assumption - and I think this is fair - is that there'll be another league sponsorship payment due, but no change to our obligations, which already far outpace our scheduled income. Therefore there will be another few months at best before we are once again insolvent. Administration in such a scenario is inevitable, and at that point the rest of Scottish football will be within their rights to ask why Morton have the buckets out again. This is being treated - much as Estrella (for all their faults were) - as a wee sub to tide the club over while the cavalry comes. I don't think that's appropriate. I think it's a damn cheek, frankly, and I think it's the kind of shadiness that clubs like Dundee and Livingston got up to, and if God forbid we do end up in administration if the cavalry doesn't arrive, then we've blown a ton of goodwill that we can't get back.

The current state of play is that the club has announced that, prior to the Fighting Fund, on the current trajectory we would be unable to fully meet our obligations (i.e. we would be insolvent) at the end of October or start of November. The Fighting Fund presumably adds a few weeks to that timeline. What has not been announced is what the plan is after that deadline is forestalled. Are we expecting a large cash injection sometime after November? How much is it and when is it due? Are we planning a 2027-28 budget that will prevent a repeat of this issue? In the absence of such things - a change to the material circumstances of our income in the current season to meet obligations; and a concrete plan to cut our expenditures for next season to prevent the same thing from happening - it is wildly inappropriate for us to have the buckets out and incredibly profligate for us to spend a single penny towards anything that isn't either required to do business (e.g. safety at Cappielow) or to meet our existing obligations (i.e. payroll, taxes, etc.) But some new cushions and a couple of ringers from Doncaster and Shrewsbury will be a good laugh so who cares, we'll worry about that next time we need a wee loan from a potential investor.

Murray's inability to run a pre-season has us knackered after an hour, he doesn't make subs until late because he's terrified of making changes, and his pea-hearted approach to the club has rubbed off on players, including the experienced ones who really should know better and be up for the fight. I didn't watch the game btw but I bet I'm right.

We're dead on our feet after 70 minutes every week because we didn't have a pre-season, right?

I've not been watching but that's our first goal since May 1st. Thtriker!

It's not a matter of timing at all. It's a matter of them hauling the buckets out with absolutely zero clarity over the stakes and the needs. If we get to October having raised, let's say for the sake of argument, 30k via the fighting fund, what does that sum actually mean for us as a going concern? If everything else remains pretty much equal - no new major sponsor, no new investment via a share issue - how much time does that buy us? What's the next deadline? Without answers to these questions, my assumption - and I think it's a fair one - is that we've got our head above water for one big gulp of air before sinking back under, and the best case scenario from there is that GMFC enters administration. At which point we've already launched a fighting fund and it's old news and people will wonder what was done with the money they already put in.

This is very much absent from the 'fighting fund' statement. I have USD$2,500 ready to go. I'll send it directly to GMFC's bank account as soon as I see someone from Morton's BoD face a camera/interviewer and say that this is do or die and we're insolvent in October unless a specific amount of money is raised, and what that amount is. This isn't contingent on them doing anything else to forestall it other than asking for money. This isn't contingent on anyone resigning or anything like that. It isn't contingent on knowing what the next 'deadline' is or the amount required to meet that one. I just want to know the actual amount in pounds sterling, give or take a few grand, that we need to survive into October without the club going insolvent. Dumbarton's fighting fund was set up after they entered administration and it had a specific amount of money earmarked for it. Morton's fighting fund was set up in a post-AGM fugue because someone asked them to, and it has no specifics attached to it at all. It's absolutely not good enough. And they asked us to vote for that period of exclusivity, by the way.

The ringfencing was known at the time of the vote, as was getting John Laird waddling around the place. We have to take the rough with the smooth here. I went for it because I thought Bonar and Dalrada had more nous about them than turned out to be available to us, and that they'd whip us into shape a bit. Instead he was completely hands-off and Laird had the run of the place, to completely ill effect, unsurprising in retrospect but what good is hindsight when it comes to these votes?

I'm glad Estrella have walked. It was a nice idea but it was clear it would never work out long-term.