dunning1874

Thanks to all who've been positive about when I was on the podcast. Without wanting to sound like a self-aggrandising prick, I don't think it's unfair to say that when I was on I was just trying to give a straight accounting of what had happened and what the claims and rebuttals of each side were without trying to interject my own opinion much, though undoubtedly some bias will have come through. I also don't think anyone could disagree that Alastair Renfrew clearly isn't doing the same as he has an agenda and side chosen, whether rightly or wrongly, and to be fair I don't think he'd dispute that either. With that in mind, again without trying to go into my own views, amongst all the comments which can be put down to his own matters of opinion I think the following are things Alastair Renfrew has stated as fact on the podcast which are contradicted by a different statement claiming to be fact from someone else. As already covered by both sides at the meeting, Estrella not being aware of any arrears from Dalrada until July, or the full extent of arrears until 10 August - this directly contradicts the GMFC & MCT claim these details were fully shared with them in April and May as part of due diligence and they were kept up to date with further failures throughout. Both sides claim a paper trail supports their version of events. Renfrew said Dalrada's arrears are currently £320K and will be £420K by the end of the season; this not only contradicts what the GMFC board said at the meeting (that £340K would be the total arrears by the end of the season), this directly contradicts the Investment Agreement itself. That was in a clause looking to fix a future share price in the event Dalrada failed to pay up their arrears, which stated £340K was the total due from Dalrada. However, this was clause 2.24, which is the one we received an email about a couple of hours before the meeting saying updated wording had been agreed for this one outstanding clause and the IA was now considered finalised. It was agreed at the meeting that the agreement would be resent with the updated wording, but then Estrella withdrew anyway so it never happened. The updated wording of that clause would certainly catch someone in a lie here. If as per Estrella's own timeline they reopened negotiations on a previously finalised agreement in August, on the basis of finding out in July about Dalrada's arrears and in August about the full extent of them, then a clause specifically about their arrears can only have been inserted at their behest after those negotiations restarted. If Estrella's accounting of events is true and they only learned the full extent of those arrears on 10 August, a clause about Dalrada's arrears can only have been inserted in August and with the correct value of arrears only after 10 August. As members didn't get the IA until 15 August, we have no way of knowing when it was first added. However, if the updated clause 2.24 still stated £340K as the amount due from Dalrada, where are the extra £80K in arrears coming from in line with Alastair Renfrew's claim of £420K? That would mean the Estrella side are now lying about the extent of the arrears in public by inflating them. If the updated wording of clause 2.24 saw that number change from £340K to £420K, then it would mean the GMFC board were lying to MCT members on the night about the size of Dalrada's potential arrears by the end of the season. That could then potentially fit with Estrella's timeline; they inserted the clause about Dalrada's arrears when they initially found out there were arrears, they then found out the amount due by the end of the season would be larger than £340K on 10 August and so had the wording revised to the larger figure. Either way, the answer to that answers who's telling the truth. If either side were shown to be lying about the extent of the arrears now, then it would be very easy to believe they were also lying about when it was disclosed. Moyes Jr being banned from Cappielow - Alastair Renfrew's not giving an accurate representation of what Mark Kelly said there. He's very focused on the fact Kelly said he was there on 17th August, the day of the meeting, and this not contradicting that the club had previously banned Moyes from entering Cappielow, but Mark Kelly's explanation included that Moyes had been there several times, not only that day, and had only been challenged on the first day he turned up unannounced. None of us will ever know the actual truth of this without someone producing either CCTV proving Moyes was in the building or a paper trail proving the club told him to bolt, but it is a misrepresentation to say the only thing anyone from GMFC claimed was that he'd been there on the day of the meeting. He said 95% of members had previously approved the deal in principle. This is factually incorrect. What 93.64% of members approved was entering due diligence and further negotiations, not a yes vote in principle on a deal. The MCT membership have never had a vote on whether they support a deal with Estrella. The wording of that question was: Should Morton Club Together enter a 60-day exclusivity period with Estrella Football Group so that both sides can fully explore the proposed partnership and carry out due diligence? Last one, this isn't directly a factual one as opposed to two competing matters of opinion but I hadn't mentioned it before when I was on the podcast myself as Estrella hadn't brought it up so it wasn't in the he said, she said mess. Renfrew said the fighting fund may be used to cover the legal costs on behalf of the board who "botched the deal", as well having said several times that he believed the board had deliberately tried to stall it. I completely agree that there should be some clarification coming from the GMFC board about what the fighting fund will be used for and when, but on the legal fees the MCT board were asked at the meeting on 17th August what their legal costs were related to the deal. They said they were sitting at £26K at that point, which was higher than they'd estimated for legal fees at the start and the main cause of both the increased cost and the delay in getting to a vote was in trying to get the Investment Agreement finalised, which they attributed to Estrella insisting on using a Dutch law firm rather than a Scottish one, and so lacking expertise in Scots Law. The botched deal claim is therefore being levelled in both directions.

Having criticised him at half-time, I hadn't realised until seeing the goal back that Brophy was the one who dropped back into our half to spread the ball out to the wing, as well as then playing one of the passes in the box and scoring it. He's really done well with that and covered ground quickly there, fair play.

Wholly deserved point, can't complain with that performance really. That's a good point and the sort of grinding performance we need. The very first time Cupps had possession inside the first 5 minutes he wanted a wee bit too much time on the ball then had to rush a pass under pressure, but when he quickly settled down and realised the pace the game being was played at it was very obvious that this 18 year old has stupidly good reading of the game for this level and can pick a pass with it as well as defending with it. Routinely winning 70/30 balls in the attacker's favour without looking like he needed to break a sweat to do so, he was very good. His distribution really helped with being able to build into midfield with passes with a thought behind them rather than having aimless side to side nonsense playing us into trouble between the defenders too. The equaliser was a lovely goal, though I didn't celebrate it enough because I was reeling at the flag not going up. Was sure at least one of those passes must have been offside, but it was still a really well worked passing move regardless. Wee bit concerned that with more players available Murray is still repeating last season's mistakes with only making 3 subs when he could have used 5, several players were burst in that last 10 minutes and it contributed to the momentum shift back in Ayr's favour when we'd looked more like winning the game. You could understand limited subs over most league games so far with the state of the bench but he's got McLuckie, Carse, O'Toole and Black unused there, three of them have been signed out of the first team budget rather than being weans thrown in unexpectedly and Black has shown he can be trusted. Still, that aside, it's a day with more positives than negatives.

We were comfortably the better team for the first 30 minutes there, but didn't create enough with it and then when Ayr inevitably got their own a spell of pressure and a momentum shift, they start creating good chances and score. Penalty was a stonewaller, Murphy's slipped rather than deliberately diving in but he's clearly wiped him out. Most of the team getting pass marks, but Brophy is very far away from them. A total passenger who's steadfastly refusing to jump.

Cupps was likely to come straight in and I see the thought process of just getting Ballantyne in his correct position even though Black's been better than Murphy, but thought we might see Laiith moved to left back to accomodate Cupps rather than Moore dropped.

No comment on him as a player, but signing another winger when we only have two full backs at the club is absolutely mental.

As per previous posts I thought it would be inappropriate to be spending more money on players with one hand while taking donations with another, so credit where due for managing to find a loanee who presumably isn't costing anything. Defensive reinforcements were obviously badly needed, no idea how this is going to go but a totally left-field 18 year old like this probably has more chance of working out alright than whatever 18 year olds aren't in the plans at Kilmarnock or St Mirren and haven't been loaned out elsewhere yet.

Murray talking about potential loan signings in his post-match interview. It is of course possible that loans can come with no cost to the club depending how the deal is structured (it's mandatory with coop agreements that there's no payment), and if so it may be the case that the club giving us players don't want it publicised, but I do think if this happens Morton need to be very open and transparent about the finances involved in those loans. It would be an awful look to be asking for donations, receiving thousands then making signings within a week. You can't be asking fans to dip into their pockets and then spending what you get on players, so if we're effectively getting loanees for free if they play X number of games that should be communicated.

If we lose next week than Ian Murray will have a worse league record than Kenny Shiels. Clearly all due to the off-field circumstances when 15 of those games were last season!

That second half was obviously a much better performance than most we've offered this season, and yet we've still ultimately come out of it with nothing due to an obvious Ian Murray failing. All the off-field issues don't excuse a repeated failure to have a team organised to defend set-pieces, and we give up so many free headers that it can only be a systemic issue rather than entirely individual errors.

So the club tweeting about shirt sponsorship achieved nothing and was the bare minimum, but Mick Kennedy replying to the tweet was a decisive factor which drummed up all the attention? You're all over the place here.

Yes, and I'm not saying "oh if only we'd sold the home shirt sponsorship to a more reliable company that money would fill the black hole left by Dalrada failing to pay." I mentioned home shirt sponsorship only because that is ostensibly what Dalrada are supposed to be paying for. I'm saying that we shouldn't have taken the Dalrada money and committed to a budget - and therefore those contracts - on the basis of it, which is the exact same point you are making.

I fail to understand why you're constructing a straw man to argue with. The only point I'm making with this is the exact same one you are, that we shouldn't have signed another sponsorship deal with Dalrada when they'd already demonstrated an inability to pay, and we'd be much better off now if we'd made a smaller budget as a result based on whatever smaller sum would come in instead from the alternative sponsors who could be trusted to pay on time.

I said home shirt sponsor because that what the sponsorship from Dalrada this season is for. Taking an alternative one would have meant not taking money from Dalrada, avoiding that exposure.

The Estrella statement explicitly said that the club was in serious danger of running out of money this month, that's what Graham Barr denied when he took the mic while they were taking turns rebutting the statement. There's no contradiction between denying that and saying the club will have serious cashflow issues later if no Dalrada money comes in. I completely agree that they should have been open about the extent of the financial challenges from the start, both in terms of having needed a loan to get through July and how quickly having no payments from Dalrada will see the club struggling to meet their outgoings, rather than this only being made clear following Estrella's statement and in response to audience questions. Asking questions about the level of transparency because they didn't do that doesn't prove any of Estrella's claims though.