dunning1874

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.

I'm not overlooking that fact at all; I explicitly addressed it in the sentence between the two paragraphs you've quoted which you've removed from the quote! I don't actually think we disagree on this, as I said the GMFC board could have found a more reliable alternative shirt sponsor who'd actually pay on time even though the total sum would almost certainly be smaller, allowing whatever budget was set on the basis of that smaller sum to be maintained. We disagree about whether having not done so, that then means the club are justified in turning to asking fans to put their hands in their pockets on top of the other multitude of payments we already make, and fair enough.

I genuinely get the viewpoint that the club don't deserve fans dipping into their pockets, no football club is entitled to money from their fans and there are also concerns about the running of the club for various reasons. I would say though that the primary reason we're in the position of urgently needing to fundraise is a hole being blown in the budget by a sponsor failing to keep up with their contractual payments. It's valid to point out that with Dalrada's track record we could have gone elsewhere and found alternative sponsorship that would have been of a smaller monetary value but could actually be relied on to be paid on time and in full then we wouldn't be in this position, and there's a conversation to be had about whether the GMFC considered that alternative, if not why not and what that means for trusting them to make commercial decisions - and set budgets - in the future. However it's also not like the board have plucked an obscenely large figure for the wage budget out of thin air and hoped it would take care of itself on a wing and a prayer. They ultimately made the budget based on scheduled sponsorship income, not increasing attendances by 1000 overnight. Adding Carse to the wage bill though is a question to be answered. If Morton going down the public appeal route can raise enough money to see the club through to the end of the season and expiry of contracts, when we can then have a proper restructure of the club that brings expenditure down then good. Given the choice between being called tinpot for doing this or opening the door to some potential shysters forever, I'll take raising money the tinpot way. If we get to that point where we know we're seeing the season out, that's the time for a reckoning about what directors knew and when and so whether it's appropriate for them to still be around for part of that restructure; adding more turmoil by demanding resignations now and having a skeleton board handling things only makes it more difficult for the club to function. Caveat on that is if Estrella were to present evidence for some of the claims in their statement that would prove someone has been lying to the membership then that would be an immediate resigning matter, but I suspect that withdrawing from the process means we'll never hear from them again and so they never have to worry about providing evidence. MCT should still be providing evidence of their rebuttal regardless.

That's right, initial sign up was based on £10 a month and you immediately had voting rights with it, but once you'd contributed £240 your voting rights continue even if your payments stop. There was an AGM proposal in 2025 to change the rules so voting rights were contingent on continuing to make regular payments. I think we can all appreciate that we don't want to end up in the position in 2029 that you have 900 people who paid a lump sum of £240 in 2019 and haven't made another payment for a decade able to outvote 200 who are still actively contributing (numbers plucked out of thin air to illustrate the point), but that amendment to the articles was massively voted against. Coming after the whole fallout regarding the transfer embargo, Dalrada deal and mass resignation of the MCT board, there was a feeling that it was time for more carrot and less stick and the focus should be rebuilding trust in the hope that would encourage people to resume payments, rather than immediately removing voting rights from however many non-paying members there are.

These things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive though. It's possible for Estrella to be exaggerating the extent of the issues by saying the club is at serious risk of running out of money this month, while cashflow will still become an issue that serious in two months if Dalrada don't pay. They should have been that open about the extent of that risk off the bat rather than needing to be bounced into it by the Estrella statement or questions from the floor so members could make an informed choice, but it doesn't make denying the claim they were going to run out of money at the end of the month a lie.

If you're giving Estrella some credit and taking them entirely at face value, you could take them dropping out as totally fair enough. On a charitable reading, despite having huge concerns they've stuck in and still made an offer, been honest with the membership and the membership have told them they don't want to vote for it now, so they've decided not to go any further as they won't make a better offer than the current one. With a more cynical eye, it doesn't escape notice that deciding to withdraw now means they aren't going to be engaging with the MCT membership or Morton support at large any more, and so they can disappear with needing to present any evidence for the claims made in the statement last night. MCT, and GMFC where appropriate, should still be providing a rebuttal. I get that some of this will be commercially sensitive and they can't leave themselves exposed to a legal challenge from Estrella over details that should remain confidential either, but there were some extremely serious claims made which both sides claimed to have a paper trail to prove or disprove. Even if much of it has to be redacted, MCT should provide as much as they possibly can of that to prove they were telling the truth.

This is a serious brass neck. While they may have a point about professionalism throughout the process as a whole, you don't get to complain about not seeing the wording of an email in advance or professionalism and transparency when you've attempted to drop a bomb with a statement like that. That's Estrella confirmed they're withdrawing. https://estrellafootball.group/news/estrella-football-group-withdraws-from-proposed-investment-in-greenock-morton-fc

You're misrepresenting the GMFC & MCT position here. They said that Estrella first had access to information about Dalrada's arrears in April, not that they got that information in April and nothing else after. You can choose to believe GMFC over Estrella, Estrella over GMFC, bits of both or neither of both, but what GMFC/MCT claimed (I think it was David Whitton speaking at that point who's on both boards which is why I'm not making a distinction in this case) was that Estrella were fully kept up to date with Dalrada's arrears between being given access to April & May financial information in the due diligence period, then being updated again when the arrears grew in June, with the transcript of the phone call between Dalrada & GMFC being shared with Estrella. You may not believe that, but it's not true to say Morton's position was that Estrella got one update in April then didn't keep them in the loop.

Morton have indeed launched a fighting fund in the last 15 minutes, emailed out and donations can be made via Fanbase. Probably wise to avoid doing it via MCT so those opposed to fan ownership can contribute without feeling they're funding MCT in any way.

In the cold light of a new day, after a shite sleep which was interrupted several times by someone asking to make a point of order which was in fact a question, you can now suffer several paragraphs of my nonsense. Aside from the explosion that blew up the room, pertinent non-Estrella related points that came out before the statement and the anger aimed in all directions that followed were the result of the MCT Director Elections that George Anderson, Thomas Francis, Graham McLennan and John McMaster were elected. Also, no vote was held on the amendment to the articles regarding adding a Morton in the Community representative seat to the MCT board, as MITC themselves requested that's delayed as they're currently undergoing a change of trustees themselves and want that settled at their side first. So on the statement then, it was extremely long so I'm not going to get every detail and I didn't manage to scribble everything down as it went but I'm going to try to reproduce the most serious claims here and intersperse the MCT/GMFC responses which came later as I go. I'll do my best to keep it to the reality of what each side's version of events was rather than interjecting my own opinion on the credibility of either side's claims, but hopefully we do get it emailed out. The terms of the deal have changed because in March Estrella thought Morton were a stable club and it's since became clear that they're not. In July GMFC contacted Estrella to ask for an emergency loan. The GMFC response was that this was true, they had a short-term cashflow issue and needed a sum (they didn't specify how much) to tide them over to the following week when they were due to receive a £160K payment (not specified from where). Estrella were one of the parties asked, the terms of the loan suggested by Estrella were unacceptable to GMFC so they declined, found an alternative source of a soft loan and that loan was repaid in full after those funds were received. Estrella were not made aware of Dalrada being in arrears through the due diligence process, and even after learning that they were in arrears they only learned the full extent of the arrears on Monday 10 August. The MCT response was that Estrella have been fully aware of Dalrada's arrears throughout the process. As part of due diligence full GMFC financial details were disclosed in April & May and Dalrada being a debtor was clearly shown. GMFC also had a call with Dalrada discussing the arrears - I think they said that was around the end of June or start of July when there was a significant shortfall in Dalrada's payment but my notes may be failing me here - a full transcript of this call was taken and was shared with Estrella. Both sides claim to have a paper trail supporting their version of events. Estrella contacted Brian Bonar independently of GMFC to discuss Dalrada's arrears as they didn't think they were getting the whole truth, and the direct quote from Brian Bonar they presented was that payments are "unlikely to be made in full". The direct quote GMFC attributed to Brian Bonar from their own discussions was that it was a timing issue but he said "I will pay every penny" even if those payments aren't made on time. They also said that it was GMFC or MCT (I didn't catch which) who arranged the call between Estrella and Dalrada. Estrella claimed that the MCT board suggested Estrella adjust their offer to be for majority control of GMFC rather than 35%. The MCT response was that the suggestion of 51% rather than 35% came from Estrella, not from MCT, and they did discuss putting two different Estrella offers to members, one at 51% and one at the original 35%, but were concerned having two different Estrella offers on the table would cause confusion. Ultimately Estrella decided they wanted to stick with 35%. Estrella said David Moyes Jr was brought in at the request of the current management team to assist with recruitment, not at Estrella's behest. His wages while he's working without a contract are mostly but not fully covered by an external backer. Estrella requested a pause on recruitment until the deal was concluded so they could then fund players Moyes was identifying but GMFC continued to make signings. They want to make him a permanent technical director as having someone in that role is "essential at any serious club", and the current state of the team on the park means they want to add two Championship players immediately and those signings are fully costed. Moyes' involvement is now a red line for Estrella, however GMFC have said he's "not welcome at Cappielow." GMFC said Moyes was in place at Estrella's request, not the current management team. They did speak to Murray regarding his views on a Technical Director/Director of Football type model and he said it's his preference to work with one, but Murray didn't make a specific request that one be appointed. GMFC do see this as being a helpful position to have filled in future but it wasn't accounted for in the budget for this season, which is already a budget they have a shortfall on due to Dalrada's arrears, so they don't want to add more expenditure outside of the budget with the portion of Moyes' wage which isn't covered by an external backer and six figures on more players. Mark Kelly said it was a lie that Moyes has been told he wasn't welcome at Cappielow and had been there several times, including earlier that day before the meeting. He said that the first day Moyes turned up he challenged his right to be there because as general manager he'd heard nothing about him coming and didn't want to let someone who wasn't employed by the club, Estrella or MCT into the stadium without having been given any reason to be there, but after speaking to the GMFC board he was allowed in and has returned several times since. Estrella said there is a serious risk of the club running out of money before the end of August. GMFC said there is no danger of the club running out of money in August. Having covered all that I'll interject my own thing here because it was towards the end of the meeting after many people had left as it went on so long that I asked (sorry for being one of the people asking without a mic if those online couldn't hear, I thought we were done having the mic passed round as it was almost finished after the resolution to delay the vote had passed and everyone wanted to go home). I specifically asked, while knowing they can't say for sure based on how other income might fluctuate, if we have the doomsday scenario of Dalrada not paying a penny for several months, when does making payroll at the end of the month become an issue? They said they don't expect any issues in September, but if they weren't receiving any Dalrada payments then things would become difficult from October onwards. I didn't ask any follow ups but people do need to be realistic here and aware of this, realistically whatever this alternative consortium has to offer we are obviously not going to be in a position where we've got two completed deals to be chosen between going to members before the end of October that will magically make any cashflow issues evaporate. If there isn't a drastic change at Dalrada's end and we haven't had a completed deal agreed, we are going to need some serious fundraising to stop the Dalrada shortfall in the budget tanking the club.

That was an audience member asking rather than anyone from MCT, I think if there was any answer to that from the MCT board members it was a very brief one sentence it's not their place to speak for Estrella before Alastair Renfrew took the mic again, while several people in the room interjected to say that was covered at the previous meeting. I'm fairly sure he voted in favour of the motion to delay or if not he abstained, there was only one vote against and it was someone else in the room (who I won't name as they're just a rank and file member who I've never spoken to and it's up to them to put their name to it if they want to). Not going to bother with a full on synopsis of the meeting now because being in there for 3 hours was soul destroying enough without recounting it tonight as well, but it's certainly not made the mood around the club any more positive.

Exactly the hypothetical scenario I laid out above where Estrella want to spend more money than we can afford on the first team (or anything else) because they think success on the park through increased spending will address the shortfall by itself, the rest of the board aren't willing to sanction it because they feel that's jeopardising the future of the club if the gamble doesn't pay off and no one will budge. All the indications we have that Estrella concern themselves more with infrastructure rather than the Dalrada style stupidity of ringfencing for the first team mean this should only be a doomsday scenario that doesn't come to pass and we have no reason to assume malice or incompetence on their part, but when all we have to go on is their word it would be naive to shrug our shoulders and say the bad scenario probably isn't going to happen, so let's just ignore the lack of a safeguard to stop it and allow them to have a veto over the budget in perpetuity. I'm not arguing about the need for change but the security of the club financially; if the veto exposes the club more in the event that Estrella turn out to be malicious or incompetent, why not have the deal without it when that can give the club - GMFC as a whole rather than whoever the board members happen to be at any given time - some protection in that scenario? I sincerely hope it's an academic discussion and they only have good intentions while being entirely competent at delivering on their plans, but hope isn't a reason to ignore the potential downside. If the veto wasn't there then in the event that they did turn out to be a bad actor in one way or another, they could at least be overruled. The main concern being the stability of the club is also why we need an answer tonight on what the financial position is both with and without the investment in the event that Dalrada fail to pay a further penny. Hopefully also a doomsday scenario that won't come to pass, but we need to be fully informed on the implications of either vote.