The first hint of a change came on Saturday when BBC Scotland reported that an announcement would be made early this week regarding an alteration in the balance of power in the boardroom. That has been followed up in today’s Sun where the well connected Andy Devlin adds a little more flesh to the story.
The plan, he writes, is that Derek Weir, will see his shareholding increase and that he will undertake a review of the club’s finances. Weir is already on the board and he is well placed to offer financial guidance. Until 2006 he was the most senior corporate banker with the Royal bank of Scotland (though what degree of culpability he holds for the banking crisis is not clear!). He is a past winner of the Young Businessman of the Year Award and a lifelong Motherwell fan.
John Boyle took control of Motherwell in 1998 when he agreed to buy the club from John Chapman. His ambitious plans to make us the ‘third force’ in Scottish football faltered and a period of interim administration followed. Since then the club has balanced the books and in the last couple of years there have been a few additions to the board with Derek Weir and former MSP Andrew Wilson joining up. Recently Martin Rose, who had been appointed to the board in a personal capacity when he was chairman of the Supporters’ Trust, stepped down and the board has no fan representative.
Devlin suggests that “Motherwell want to become the first Trust-backed self-sufficient club in Britain”. Could this mean that some meaningful fan representation could be coming to the Fir Park boardroom?
There has been no reaction to these stories yet from the club and we’ll have to wait to see if the story becomes a reality.