Motherwell
FC held its AGM at Fir Park on Wednesday evening. The club remains in a healthy financial
position.
A well
attended meeting in the 91 lounge received the financial accounts and an update
from the club board.
Chairman Kyrk
McMillan opened proceedings with a few remarks.
The manager was not present and Kyrk suggested that the Well Society
would facilitate opportunities for Q&A sessions. The club and the society had almost completed
a ‘working together initiative’ that would formalise the partnership. He was pleased to see an increase in the
attendances at Fir Park and hoped that we would move closer to a sell out of
the 9000 home allocation. The board were
working to close the ‘operational gap’ with a mixture of short and long term
actions.
David Lindsay
guided the discussion on the financial statement. It showed an increase of around £70k in profit
from the previous year and after certain accounting practices was £400k in the
black.
Turnover
was up with the Premier Sports Cup semi-final and a healthy UEFA solidarity
payment major factors. Staff costs rose
from £1.5M to £1.7M mainly due to the enlarged player squad in the second half
of 24/25.
Press
reports of the Lennon Miller transfer fee were inaccurate but the fee would be
spread over four years with eight instalments and there were 20 addons in the
deal. Brian Caldwell was thanked for his
efforts in negotiating the agreement with Udinese.
The
methodology in reporting crowd figures had changed to bring them in to line with
the rest of the league. Formerly the club
gave the number of attendees in the stadium but from this season onwards the
given figure would be the number of tickets sold. Typically 2/3 of season ticket holders
attend matches.
The sales
of half season tickets and the 5 game package were encouraging.
The meeting
was opened for questions and a number of matters were raised. Feasibility studies had been started concerning training facilities and the status of the Phil O’Donnell stand.
Problems
with the 20 year old undersoil heating boiler resulted in pitch covers being
used to protect the surface around the turn of the year. The outcome is the current unsightly state of
the pitch. However, the surface runs true and remains firm. We await new growth and grass seed has been
spread.
A question
about the manager’s contract brought the news that he has “an open contract”
and reports of a one year rolling one are wrong. The strategy and data analysis that led to
the appointment of Michael Wimmer and Jens Berthel Askou was the same and the
same approach will be used when needed in future.
