dunning1874

It's obvious to everyone that a club with a huge shortfall in their budget missing out on increased income via cup prize money through losing at home to a side two divisions below them is a huge blow, but by all means carry on being contrarian for the sake of it.

You may have noticed that we have a shortfall in the budget, which cup prize money which hadn't been budgeted for could have been significant in reducing. There should have been a far greater use of the squad from the bench tonight, only making three subs was bizarre and especially not using Gorman, but the idea that fatigue in the starters is the primary explanation for that performance is evidently a massive stretch when two of the worst performers were Cochrane and Bashir, one of whom only played 35 minutes on Saturday with the other not featuring at all. It may explain Sandilands and Borso being quiet or Ballantyne being so poor, but it doesn't mean we'd have been better if we had more rotation to throw MacKenzie Carse into the mix. Gillespie is obviously the most explicable player to drop for a midweek cup tie with his age and likely struggle to play 3 games in 8 days, but it was apparent after 5 minutes that we were badly missing him while no one else is capable of offering what he does, and by the time he came on we were already getting desperate.

I'd fine Longridge the £10K for that open net miss with the final touch of the ball. Criminal, missing out on that prize money is catastrophic.

Don't want to see any fucking about tonight, the way to give players a rest is to have the game wrapped up then take them off. The prize money is too important to risk a second string.

Hopefully the club had the fighting fund on it to give us a January WARCHEST in the title race.

I'd say it's a far bigger dereliction of the role as custodians of the club, a far bigger example of wishful thinking and far more risible to blindly assume that any investor waving cash around constitutes credible proof of the ability to provide that essential expertise and therefore we simply have to take an offer no matter what it is. Which seems to genuinely be your argument here with your "what if this is the final one?" question. This is particularly true in light of what such reputable figures in business as Brian Bonar as sponsor and John Laird as Chairman have brought us in the last two years. Let's not forget we also had Ross Gourdie on the board to lend us Dalrada's expertise from 2022, not just from 2025. It's blind trust in people flashing cash and touting their business credentials that brought us here. If come the summer there's been no external investment, then the immediate step that prevents ending up in this position again is that the club massively reduces outgoings to reflect reliable income rather than being overly dependent on one external backer, whether that's a sponsor or owner. Go part-time and start setting aside MCT contributions for capital expenditure rather than launching it into the first team budget. Maybe that would be the beginning of a Queen of the South style circling of the drain, but it would also not be as bad as administration and would allow any future offers of investment to be considered with a clear head of whether they're actually going to provide the expertise and financial stability to improve the club rather than feeling we simply have to take whatever's on the table out of panic.

I meant MCT losing control of Cappielow, not GMFC losing access to it. Although as the consortium raised the possibility of using Cappielow as a security for a loan as their first explanation for why they want to own it, the latter potentially happening is not scaremongering pish but a scenario people are considering because the consortium themselves suggested a course of action which would make that a credible prospect. Yes, this is fair enough. Plenty of people aren't going to be willing to contribute without change because they'll see it as good money after bad and don't trust those already there to use it wisely. For me we already know what they'd be spending it on though, filling the shortfall. Yeah it's a self-inflicted problem, if they hadn't based a budget on money from a sponsor already in arrears or had made more extensive cuts to the budget when it became clear that arrears were going to worsen they wouldn't be in this position, and that's something everyone who was on the GMFC board at the time (all current members other than Kenneth Weldin) has to answer for. If that decision making putting the club in this position is a resigning matter and clear the decks situation then fine, but as you say it's already a rudderless ship with a board of four. Punting everyone right now without anyone to replace them is only going to exacerbate that. I see why people would disagree and why this probably isn't a popular view. If anyone else feels that the fact the board put us here in the first place also makes them an impediment to getting out of it and so wants resignations now then fair enough and I won't argue, honest difference of opinion, but for me it's focus on getting through the season first then get into the recriminations of how we ended up in this position in the first place and who has to go as a result. The long term strategy for how we ensure we never end up back here again and the short term one for getting through the next 7 months are different questions. Survive this first then have the inquest, and if we can find a way to survive without it necessarily also involving the long-term decision, eg selling the club and stadium just for the money to survive, then we could make the decision of whether selling up is the best route to stability without the desperation hanging over the decision.

While we're asking what the alternative is and some people want to take the money out of desperation because we just need it from somewhere, an illustration of what raising £150K from ordinary fans would look like. I get that some people aren't able or willing to donate more and no judgement in either case, just trying to fathom how likely it is fans can raise that same sum ourselves without needing to consider a deal that involves Cappielow. If it was a flat sum being paid by everyone, that could be any of: 1K each from 150 people 500 each from 300 300 each from 500 250 each from 600 Think everyone can agree that those totals aren't realistic. Start staggering it and the following sums reach £150K: 1K from 75, 500 from 75, 300 from 75, 200 from 75 1K from 75, 500 from 75, 250 from 75, 100 from 100, 50 from 175 1K from 50, 500 from 75, 250 from 100, 125 from 100, 100 from 100, 50 from 200, 25 from 200 Obviously it wouldn't work out as round numbers in reality, but it's illustrative. Are there between 50-75 people in the support with £1K to spare over 2/3 months, and how many of them are going to be willing to launch it in as a donation with nothing in return? No idea, and a terrible time of year to be asking for it as well, but if we don't want to wait around for a knight in shining armour these are the questions we need to ask. It's a catch-22 as well, because people are reasonably going to doubt the ability of fans to raise anything like that sum while it's only theoretical, but also while I would be willing to put my own money in if the alternative to not doing so is losing Cappielow, I'm also not willing to do it now when there's a risk you put the money in then the deal goes through anyway and all you've done is subsidise a takeover by far wealthier individuals.

Yeah, this is where I am. It was the consortium themselves who stated a reason they want Cappielow is that it could then be used as security for a loan. In that scenario whatever restrictions have governed the deal between MCT and the consortium about what the GMFC board can and can't do with Cappielow would become irrelevant, because if they default on the loan and ownership transfers to the third party with a security then none of those agreements would stand. There's lots of this where you can make the argument that we should wait and see what's actually in a finalised investment agreement to confirm if the guarantees about safeguarding Cappielow, returning it and shares back to MCT etc as promised by the consortium have been met. That's an argument to proceed to due diligence and vote no if the contract doesn't stand up to those promises. However it seems clear to me that, as they are explicitly demanding it's included for that reason, the terms will not forbid Cappielow being used as security for a loan. If that's the case then there's no prospect of a final deal that protects Cappielow, and so no point in even proceeding to due diligence because there's no prospect of an acceptable deal and we'll have wasted another £10K+ in legal fees.

I think everyone can completely agree about a need for expertise on the board and fan owned not needing to mean fan run, but that change doesn't necessarily need to come with a sale. If we do ultimately say no to this then if someone like Ian Munro is willing to join the board without ownership then good; I doubt anyone is going to be attached to the idea of MCT reps needing to constitute a majority of the GMFC board.

I can't remember the exact details but it was something to do with a criminal case being outstanding over land ownership, with resolving the land ownership issue also partly being why their board at the time chose to enter administration in the first place. They thought it was the only way to escape their then owners and the criminal case about land ownership was tied up in that somehow. Just as their entering administration was voluntary rather than being forced due to being unable to pay a debt, their choice to go down a newco route was also voluntary rather than being enforced by having a CVA after attepting to exit administration voted against; if I'm remembering correctly it was actually the administrators themselves that suggested this route, which would suggest it maximised the return for creditors rather than dodging it as liquidation usually would, but as you can tell I'm very vague on the finer details. I think there was something about the criminal case being tied up in judging the size of debts meaning a CVA couldn't actually proceed until the case was settled which could be years. In terms of sporting sanction it wasn't treated any differently from any other administrations, it was still classed as an insolvency event with a 15 point deduction one season and 5 the next, but the transferring of the licence from one company to another did require the approval of both the SPFL & SFA boards. Whether they'd be willing to do the same in the event it was a club failing to agree a CVA and being liquidated as a result rather than doing it voluntairily, I don't know and hope we never find out. Though the creation of the SPFL's rules in this way with the power to approve that resting with the board alone rather than a vote of all clubs was pretty transparently an attempt to account for Rangers ever dying again and not having to start at the bottom if they did so.

If we do end up saying no, I think we do need some clear messaging about what needs to be done with fundraising. The transparency from the club on Sunday was obviously welcome in knowing exactly what the shortfall is, but if we're saying we don't want to accept money from elsewhere then we also can't wait around for a knight in shining armour as an alternative. I know it's not as simple as boiling it down to numbers because not everyone has hundreds of pounds lying spare, and many people have already increased MCT subs, contributed to the fighting fund or have valid reasons they don't want to simply make a donation rather than make a payment to get something in return, but if say 500 members were to vote against this now as we've decided the risks aren't worth the £150K, that £150K would be equal to raising £300 each from 500 members. I'm rambling a bit here because I don't entirely know the point I'm making, obviously we're all entitled to vote no to this without being required to contribute £150K ourselves and we shouldn't be blackmailed otherwise, but if there are alternative means of raising money here that don't involve risking Cappielow then we should investigate them fully.

Thanks, but to be honest I thought I made an arse of what I was trying to say and didn't get the central point across at all (public speaking is not my strong point) which was about Cappielow more than the shares. It's all well and good to say we can have a watertight contract governing what the GMFC board can and can't do with Cappielow. If that's in place then there's nothing to worry about, right? Except the consortium themselves, without anyone else floating the idea, raised in the Q&A document the suggestion of Cappielow being used as security for a loan. You can have all the restrictions in the world on what the GMFC board can and can't do with Cappielow in MCT's favour, but in the event that hypothetical loan isn't repaid then Cappielow transfers to that third party, those restrictions won't travel with it. Unless the terms explicitly forbid Cappielow being used as security for a loan - and clearly the consortium don't want that to be the case - then Cappielow is not safeguarded.

It's the transparency we need, but shocked the shortfall is still that high. With the tone of things in July I'd assumed the budget had been massively reduced again beyond the already planned reduction v last season when Dalrada's arrears increased massively, but the shortfall is actually only £15K short of Dalrada's total arrears and so Murray's budget could barely have been reduced from the original plan at all. That £15K difference between the shortfall and the Dalrada arrears comes after Moore, McLuckie, Murray and Orr moving on has seemingly brought the budget down further as well, so it wasn't even reduced by as much £15K initially? Again have to ask why on earth he was allowed to sign Carse and Robinson in light of this. So as it stands there's still a shortfall for the season of £320K, and discounting the fighting fund money is expected to be running out in December. As far as I can see the last update on the money in the fighting fund was that it was over £70K, so there's another £250K to be found. You're not going to quadruple the amount in the fighting fund that's already slowed down after the initial burst of donations and seeing the gap makes you question whether it's worth holding donations back for when things really hit the fan at the turn of the year, rather than throwing more in now if it's going to get nowhere near covering the deficit anyway. Even if we were to take the consortium's £150K out of desperation (which we absolutely shouldn't, that's just writing the club a death sentence for a different time) that would still leave a hole of £100K after the existing fighting fund money is used, meaning the consortium could choose not to fill the gap, enabling them to do their asset stripping and close the club down far more quickly then they could with their using Cappielow as security for a loan from themselves approach. To illustrate how unlikely it is for £250K to somehow fall into our laps, to make that from cup prize money beyond what we'll have budgeted for on the basis of exiting at the earliest rounds, if we were to win the Challenge Cup (£150K for the winners v £30K for a last 32 exit, so £120K up v the budget) and make the quarter final of the Scottish Cup (on the 25/26 figures that's £110K prize money plus £24K TV money v £11.25K for a third round exit, so £122,750 up) we would still be needing the gate receipts to see us over the line to the £250K. Obviously we can't just cross our fingers and blindly hope for those things to happen, and even if they did the money would come in later in the season so wouldn't fix the cashflow issues starting in December. I don't see any alternative to a firesale of the squad in January. You're not going to be getting transfer fees for anyone but doing everything possible to reduce the wage budget could at least make a dent and bring the deficit down to a more realistic level that fundraising could hope to meet, barring some philanthropist appearing with an offer to fire six figures at us out of the goodness of their heart. That would likely end any hope of survival on the park if better players are all free to go to other clubs (and did they say at the AGM that they budgeted for 8th, so ending up 10th could increase the deficit again?) but survival off it is more important.

Miller talking to the Tele: “I'm delighted, we worked on that all week. How we wanted to play, how we wanted to move and getting in behind them” That might seem a blatantly obvious statement - management team coach players on tactics at training to prepare for a game - but this is the big difference in the last couple of games. Both in and out of possession there is actually a plan for what players are supposed to be doing, where they're meant to be and how that's going to lead to creating chances. There was absolutely none of that under Murray, he'd clearly mentally checked out to such an extent that he simply wasn't bothering his arse to coach them or make a gameplan beyond "here's your formation, off you go". Now you can clearly see what the plan is and that the coaching is actually happening, it shows in how we attack and create chances, it shows in how we press as a unit and it shows in how we shut down any space in midfield in the second half yesterday. As part of a properly organised team, players who'd looked miles off it under Murray like Sandilands and Garrity are being given the platform to play really well and win us games. It's still very early days and bad results are going to come while the wins have come in two of the easier fixtures we'll have, but what a breath of fresh air to see a management team who are actually concerned with getting results and doing everything they can to help the players, rather than self-servingly throwing them under the bus in a wild attempt to protect their own reputation.