TRVMP

If someone from the club wants to put their name to words like 'without x pounds raised we will go to the wall by y' I'll donate a four figure sum, by the way. But they're not going to do that because it's obviously not true!

Do something positive for the club? Like buy it? Contribute to it every month? Like over a thousand of us are already doing? Barr himself said last night the outstanding Dalrada monies are a drop in the ocean - his exact words - when it comes to keeping Morton operational. So how much are you aiming for with the fighting fund? 2x what Dalrada owes? 3x? When does the cloth-cutting start, exactly? Today? You're OK with not signing any more players?

CS, see the post from CHC above. He's not the only one who thinks it's unclear. Graham said last night we're not in imminent bother, that the situation isn't existential. But is it aye? Is the club going to say out loud that the fighting fund is what we need to keep the club alive? Am I the complacent one or am I going off what they said in plain English last night? Am I the complacent one or is it the guys responsible for the club's income thinking they can just ring a bell and have the fans put their hands in their pocket on command? Because I promise them this: this will only work once. You won't get five grand in a couple of hours if you're pulling this stunt again in 18 months' time. I think it's completely inappropriate for the club to be asking for this without an "or else". What happens if we don't? What is the actual outcome here? What is the exact shortfall that needs to be met - is it in excess of the outstanding Darada monies? What was the plan to deal with that prior to last night?

I don't think the club should be doing this. It's the wrong approach at the wrong time, and if and when we truly are in existential trouble - when the lights will go off without an injection of money from Morton fans and the wider Scottish football community - we've burnt a bunch of goodwill. I wouldn't put money in a bucket for a club like Livi or Dundee that's been in trouble several times over the past 20 years because they've burnt that goodwill for me. I probably would chuck a couple of quid at a club that's lived within its means but had a bad year for an unforeseeable reason. I think that, on the current trajectory, we're closer to the former than the latter.

I've been a paid-up member of MCT for seven years and I've increased by monthly donation twice in that time. If that's not being part of the attempted solution, only contributing to the black hole of the Midfielders Fighting Fund is, then so be it.

We're debt-free. We're told on the one hand that Dalrada will meet their commitments and that Estrella were exaggerating the scope of the problems, but we're also told we're going to face a very lean autumn. OK. Then try making money in a way that's not begging, perhaps. Cut the budget, stop signing midfielders. Are we going to live within our means, even if that means relegation, or are we going to do a Clyde and rely on the Scottish football fraternity to fund our squad until their patience runs out?

People can downvote this if they want but it's not completely untrue, is it? Dalrada were welcomed to the club with an overwhelming mandate from the ownership. I certainly voted for them.

I won't be putting a penny into this. Absolute riddy. I subscribe to MCT, I get a new kit every season, I often get some other miscellaneous tat when I'm over, I have a brick at Cappielow, and I now sponsor a kit as well. I sub to MCT because as club owners we need to subsidize the club, same as every other team in the Championship is subsidized by its owners. I buy things from the club because the club means a lot to me and I want to help it, plus I like the kits and the tat. I've sponsored a kit both to help the club and because it's good to show players that they're valued on and off the park. But just throwing money into a black hole should be reserved for when there's absolutely no other option. And we haven't even scratched the surface of options yet. This is a complete embarrassment and I'll have nothing to do with it. Hell mend us when we truly do hit an existential crisis. May we not live to regret crying wolf.

I've heard enough from Xander. Time to get this clog-wearing windmill-humper to fuck.

If another club in our division had the begging bowl out because of issues like these I'd be telling them to ram it. This is entirely of our own making. We relied too heavily on one sponsor, we didn't make adequate preparations for their winding down their sponsorship, we're still sticking our head in the sand about the incoming funds, and we're apparently reaching out for soft loans without the knowledge of the membership. This is about 25% hard luck but 75% complacency. And we've signed a boatload of shan midfielders with what little money we do have. If we ever do face a serious doomsday scenario for unforeseen reasons then I certainly hope we haven't blown all our goodwill on the current situation.

By going scorched earth with their opening statement, I think anything short of 'unconditional surrender' tonight would have resulted in them walking away. So that's that door closed, I reckon. Assuming they actually still wanted to go ahead with the deal, they have played it very, very badly tonight. Sending someone by proxy to issue a 30-minute litany of complaints that can't be checked in real time, without one of them being present to address the points, was a big risk, and it's backfired. No disrespect to the likes of Cascais but I doubt they have more than a dozen fans. It's easy to steamroll in situations like that. Their Italian partner, Pro Patria, is at least a "real" professional outfit, but it's not fan-owned. So it would just be about the finances, primarily. This required a hearts and minds approach and they've frankly fucked it.

If MCT required members to resubscribe every month the membership would be tiny. Thank God we have inertia and Direct Debit.

I don't think anyone's covered themselves in glory here, but yes, we should not have approached them for a short term loan. I've been largely sympathetic to the existing board, and they are on a hiding to nothing no matter what happens, and I know they're burning the midnight oil... but this is a disaster.

Someone (not sure who, I don't know all the voices) just addressed that. Apparently the club did approach them for a short term cashflow covering loan in the summer. Estrella's terms were going to be bad for that. So the club went to an individual instead, got a soft unsecured loan, and have now paid it back. Apparently the 'ten local businessman consortium' does exist.

Oh, good, it's a known idiot, I don't feel bad then.