dunning1874

They already have contracts to be paid up, so we can't release players with no cost and and also need to have enough of them to fulfill fixtures. We also already had 22 of them without including the coop loans we can bring back at any time we like, the squad is fucking massive. The threat to keeping GMFC afloat is the shortfall in the budget this season. Signing more players is a barrier to reducing that shortfall. If we happen to be in a lower division with lower income in future we can adjust our expenditure to account for that, as we have no contractual commitments beyond this season. Signing more players this season however, when we already have contractual commitments which can't be met, is jeopardising the club's survival. Making more signings is not saving money. The wage bill being lower than it was when Moore and McLuckie were here (and we don't know for sure that this is the case) does not mean we have saved money by signing Robinson. If he receives a wage, he costs money. Moore & McLuckie out - saves money Robinson in - costs money These things are not dependent on each other as you could do the former without the latter. The signing is costing money, money which we do not have. It is gambling with the existence of the club and is a shambolic way for the club to conduct themselves at the same time as asking for donations to keep the lights on.

Has the reduction in the budget through Moore leaving permanently and McLuckie leaving on loan (co-op loans are required by the rules to have no payment so we will not have a penny of Black, Murphy or O'Toole's wages covered by Renfrew) wiped out the shortfall left by Dalrada's arrears? If the answer is no, which it is, then using those savings to sign more players and therefore pushing the cost of the wage budget back up rather than taking the saving is a completely indefensible thing to do when we have been told that shortfall will see the club run out of money before the end of tbe season. It is reckless and unjustifiable. Unless Robinson is for some reason playing for free - and he could have signed on amateur terms if that was the case to allow him to leave for a club willing to pay him whenever he liked - the only explanation here is that the club are behaving irresponsibly. This will kill any momentum in the fighting fund, because no one is donating money to subsidise signings.

Making more signings which add to wage bill with everything else going is completely unacceptable. We have a budget shortfall of an unspecified amount which is seemingly an existential threat to the club. The existence of this shortfall has led people to make donations in the hope they're helping the club avert that existential threat, with donations currently sitting at £70K and counting. In these circumstances all the loan signings are absolutely fine. While they clearly aren't allowed by the parent clubs to explicitly say so, it's extremely clear from what's been said about the loan signings that we aren't paying a penny towards the wages of any of them. This is a sensible way to go about things, bringing costs down wherever possible is the right thing to do and we were explicitly told that the wage bill was lowered since the fighting fund was launched through Moore's departure. The decision to then go and make another permanent signing defies belief. Even if we say for arguments sake that Robinson's on a lower wage than Moore was and so the wage bill is still lower now than it was at the end of August, that's not the point; expenditure needs to come down by cutting costs wherever possible to reduce the shortfall, and instead we're putting it back up by making more signings. Anyone making a donation to the club believes they're doing so to help avert an existential threat, not to top up the wage bill. Adding more wages to the outgoings while talking about not currently having enough money to make it to end of the season is actively taking the piss out of every single person who's donated. For what it's worth Robinson was a great Championship player when he was with Dundee who should be a massive upgrade on Brophy even if he's dropped off a bit with his own fitness troubles, but the quality of the player is totally irrelevant really. The decision to sign Carse when we did was questionable at best with what we learned shortly after; the decision to sign Robinson knowing what we do now is disgraceful, and will remain so even if he scores a hat-trick in every game for the rest of the season.

Not to mention that in that time period there already was a massive uplift in prize money in the second tier. In the final season of the SFL in 12/13 we got £67K for finishing 2nd in the second tier; we got more for finishing 10th the following season and when we came back up and finished 5th in 15/16 it was £211k. By 18/19 the League 2 winners were getting the £67K we had for 2nd in the First Division, while 2nd in the Championship was then on £475K. Pretty much every club, Morton included, did the same thing with it; increased the wage budget to pay the same players more money and got caught in an inflationary cycle where anyone who didn't join the arms race would get left behind, so they all went along with it and had nothing to show for it but for the same standard of player. No doubt purely in terms of the effect on competition the game would be healthier if there was a more equitable split between the Premiership and the rest and it would be less likely for clubs to go straight back up, but we have recent enough evidence to suggest that clubs would just do the same thing all over again and use the increased funds for short-term, short-sighted spending. Why put money aside for long-term revenue generating projects if you can chuck several hundred pounds more at Zak Rudden or Nathan Shaw?

With last night's defeat, Murray now has a worse league record (so kindly for him discounting the 5 defeats out of 5 in cups, only one of which was against a side from a higher level) than Kenny Shiels and Gus MacPherson. On league points per game there are only three poorer managers in Morton's history; Allan Evans who was managing during administration, John S Thomson who was an owner who appointed himself as manager then finished bottom of the SFL, and Willie McLean who only managed us in a 10 team top flight. If we lose next week then Murray will have the same record as Allan Evans after the same number of games. An Airdrie defeat today that sees them sack Rankin and want Murray back is our best route out of this, but he's probably arrogant enough to think he's above dropping to League One.

"An incomplete Investment Agreement was issued to MCT members without Estrella's knowledge or consent, contrary to the arrangements that had been agreed and in breach of the NDA governing the process. In addition, the proposal was communicated by MCT as giving Estrella "majority control over GMFC whilst being a minority shareholder". Estrella did not see these communications until 18 August." Later in the statement... "Our decision to speak publicly at that stage was driven by the circumstances immediately preceding the AGM. Incorrect information about the nature of our proposal had been communicated to MCT members" The AGM was held on 17 August. How could the statement at the AGM be a response to the narrative created by an email on 15 August if Estrella didn't see that email until 18 August?

Also you use the phrase prematurely leaked, but a finalised agreement had been made as of 31 July then negotiations were reopened after the AGM was called and a date set for the vote to open, which all sides agree was done at Estrella's behest. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of Estrella feeling it was necessary to do so in light of the change in the club's financial position, that's why there wasn't a finalised agreement to share. The email containing the agreement as it stood was sent only 2 days before the AGM, with a later email saying agreement had been reached on the outstanding clauses coming less than 2 hours before it started. If the email with the IA as it stood is what Estrella are arguing has been a breach of the NDA by MCT and so is a basis for legal action, would it have been appropriate to wait another two days to share it? How would any MCT members have had a chance to properly scrutinise it and discuss it at the AGM if that was the case and we all only had an hour and 45 minutes to read and understand a 30 page (discounting the 20 odd pages that just listed existing shareholders) legal document? For that matter, if the MCT board sharing the IA with the MCT membership was a breach of the NDA and Estrella have cause for legal redress as a result, was briefing individual MCT members about the progress of negotiations not itself a breach of the NDA as well then, before even getting to the content of the statement? You can of course argue that they shouldn't have shared the legal advice regarding the veto and argument of majority control along with the agreement and instead kept that back for the meeting or otherwise communicated it separately, but I'd also say not sharing the legal advice the MCT board received from their lawyers with the membership whenever there's something beyond 'all good, nothing to see here' about the deal with members would itself have been an unacceptable lack of transparency. We've had contradictory statements of fact made about the course of events by all sides here, with all claiming they have a paper trail as evidence to support their version of events. None of that evidence has been shared with the membership to allow a concrete "this person is indisputably lying about this and this person is indisputably telling the truth" conclusion with evidence backing it up to be known among the membership. We now find that one of the parties is threatening the other with legal action over breaking non-disclosure agreements. You can interpret that many ways: one side did fuck up and the other side therefore has a right to take legal action against the other knowing they'd win, both sides or neither breached the agreement and a legal threat is a bluff, or in the same scenario a legal threat is not a bluff but they'd lose. Maybe a majority of the MCT board feel they're bang to rights and have no choice but to avert legal action because they'd lose, maybe a majority simply think it's the right thing to do because they want the Estrella deal back on track regardless, or maybe a majority don't think they're in the wrong but legal action isn't a risk worth taking because it would be more time and money diverted away from saving the club. Whatever the case may be, a cynic could certainly conclude though that threatening legal action over the NDA is ensuring that those paper trails which provide evidence of who was telling the truth at the AGM will never see the light of day.

A return to Airdrie when they sack Rankin is a more realistic chance of another club actually wanting him, but Murray may still be too arrogant to want to drop back to League One. Have to hope either Livingston, or Inverness if they sacked Kellacher, are daft enough to go for him.

It was 100% openly discussed at that May 2025 meeting that Dalrada had missed payments previously in 2025, although they weren't in arrears at the time of that meeting. I can't remember the dates given for sure but think it may have been January 2025? The explanation given was that there was no formal process akin to a direct debit or standing order set up for the payments to be sent, Bonar was just doing it himself manually whenever a payment was due, and so when he was ill the payments didn't happen. It was presented as a one-off issue which wouldn't be repeated with the new deal as there'd now be a proper process.

He now has the exact same league record as Kenny Shiels. P20 W4 D5 L11. Though under Murray we've scored one more and conceded four less than Shiels did. Considering that we obviously conceded 10 in one game under Shiels, that's a tragically bad record and with 15 of those games being last season, the off-field circumstances this season don't explain this. He's just an appalling excuse for a football manager with no redeeming features. Defeats in all 5 cup games he's managed as well of course, three of them against lower league opposition.

Massive squad, now with only two injured, and Murray again refuses to use all five subs. He's clueless.

Queen of the South's draw for this season was £450 to enter and had 155 entries, so raised £70K. I've no idea what the going rate for home shirt sponsorship is, but that seems decent for League One?

Confirms that the fighting fund hasn't been touched yet, but if nothing changes with Dalrada it should take us to January. Understandably Crewe, Hull, Huddersfield and Chicago Fire don't want us explicitly saying that we aren't paying any wages for their loanees, but we clearly aren't.

That totally passed me by, but looks like it's the case yeah. However as you say they're all under-21 (Sandilands turns 21 next week) so we're still fine.

The limit only applies to domestic loans, you can have as many international loans as you like without that counting. We'd still be allowed another 5 domestic loans alongside Sandilands, although we evidently don't need them.