• 5 months ago
Transcript
00:00So Ben, you're our go-to guy for everything Motherwell, can you just give us a sort of
00:11brief sort of look into what's the latest news with this investment having been withdrawn
00:18by the former Netflix VP?
00:21Brief might be difficult with the amount, I mean I think Motherwell fans will look back
00:26this month is probably, I don't want to say most tumultuous, certainly in my time covering
00:32the club and sort of being near the club has certainly been the most, it's been bonkers.
00:39The initial proposal getting made after Mullow released, I don't know if you remember Mullow
00:44released a video last season asking for external investment, Taylor Swift, Giesier, Dosh, all
00:51that type of stuff.
00:52And that initially got slated by fans and onlookers for being a bit cringy but seemed
00:57to have attracted some interest so in comes Eric Barmack and Courtney Barmack through
01:02Wild Sheep Sport, they'd proposed to invest in the club £1.95 million over six years.
01:09What this would make, this would then make Eric Barmack the immediate chairman at Motherwell
01:14and would give him pretty much boardroom influence, it would reduce the Welsh society's power
01:19at the club and fan ownership wouldn't really be a thing and it would eventually basically
01:24see the end of fan ownership at Mullow, I think that's what it became in the end, it was that
01:28choice between wanting the external investment and perhaps, at least on the face of it initially,
01:34being on a bit more of a level playing field financially because obviously Mullow are probably
01:38one of the clubs certainly in recent times who have posted losses and was fan ownership
01:45the sort of right way forward, the Welsh society itself had come under a bit of criticism
01:49but a new board had came in at the start of the year with that as well so it's a completely
01:53refreshed Welsh society but as this went on it just became a total saga, the initial investment
02:01plans that would have pretty much ended fan ownership got withdrawn and amended before
02:06the ballot process, the ballot process then got amended and extended so up until really
02:13a couple of weeks ago and then there was the BarMac proposal itself in terms of the
02:17plan they put together which contained factual errors in terms of the finances of the club
02:24so you then had that to deal with so there was just so many errors and it became a totally
02:29divisive topic within the fans that it sort of drifted away from what the actual debate
02:36was ongoing about should Mullow welcome external investment and just became a bit of a match
02:41between sections of fans and between sections of the board and the Welsh society and just
02:47became a bit of a mess in all honesty so I think for Mullow it's just good to have one
02:53way or another whether you agreed with the proposals, whether you disagreed with it,
02:56the club needed a level of clarity because it's been a really positive summer I think
02:59signing wise at Mullow, on the pitch I think you can, there's obviously the news yesterday
03:03as well that Theo Baer's going to go to Auxerre in France for a fee above the £1.3 million
03:09that's been reported which I should say that if that does go the way I think it'll go
03:15it'll probably be certainly near the BarMac's valuation of the club in terms of the money
03:22he was going to put in, I think the club overall was valued at £4 million which was another
03:27sticking point so you had that type of sale, the signings have been fairly decent like
03:32Sir Liam Gordon, Zach Robinson coming in but none of the talk has been about that, it's
03:36all been around the investment proposals and I think now the fans and the club generally
03:42need to rally around the Wells Society to deliver their model for fan ownership going
03:47forward and for the fans as well just to get a bit, because it has been really positive
03:51on the park I think, Stuart Kettlewell's done a really decent job certainly this summer
03:54so it'll be good to get the focus back on the football, I know you asked for a brief
03:58summary but I think if I was to give you a full on summary we'd be here for far longer
04:01than the 24 minutes we have.
04:06Thanks for watching!

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