Celtic fans can learn a lot from those at Motherwell. It’s too late for those at Ibrox.

At the weekend, the Motherwell fans put forth their latest campaign, and these guys are very good at campaigning. They do a lot of it. They have a big drum, and they like to bang it. One of the reasons they can bang it—and one of the reasons why they are one of the best campaigning supports in the country—is that their fan organisation, The Well Society, owns most of the club.

Motherwell are the only club in the country whose fans own the majority of the shares. That makes them the most secure club in Scotland, bar none. At every other club, the shareholding is structured in such a way that anyone with the means could come in and mount a takeover bid, just like what’s happening at Ibrox.

The media is full of the joys of spring on that one. They are confident the club will benefit from new ownership, but as this site has pointed out repeatedly, there are risks—major risks—and the press would rather not look at them.

That club is about to fall into entirely new hands without any sort of due diligence being done by the supporters. Fans have not been consulted at any stage in the process. They haven’t been asked how they feel about new ownership at their club. They haven’t been asked for their thoughts on the prospect of Americans coming in and taking it from under them.

The fact remains that this could just as easily have happened at Celtic, because we are also, to an extent, at the mercy of our largest shareholders, who could sell up and hand this club over to God knows who anytime they wanted. We have virtually no protection against that. I like to think that if it was going to happen—if it seemed imminent, or if there was the slightest suggestion that it might—we would mount some form of major protest against it.

We’ve allowed ourselves to drift into a very dangerous situation, and it amazes me that more people aren’t cognisant of that fact. The Ibrox club is already in a dangerous situation. For some sections of their fanbase, there’s no going back.

If you’re one of the Union Brats, for example, you’re already watching your club undergo a cultural transformation—and this is before the new owners are even in the door. The very fact that they want that transformation means it is happening, and they haven’t even bought a single share yet.

Motherwell fans were objecting to two things at the weekend: rising ticket prices and the Scottish Government’s continued insistence that alcohol should not, cannot, will not, and must not be returned to football grounds in Scotland—even though it’s perfectly legitimate for you to buy a beer in just about every other social setting.

If you ask Motherwell fans, they would support many of the things we talk about frequently on this blog: reform of the SFA, a better TV deal for Scottish clubs—possibly one that steps away from the current broadcasters and gets a little more creative. They would probably support changes to our league format.

I don’t know whether they would back the abolition of the split or welcoming more clubs into the top flight. It’s interesting that we are, again, in talks about reforming the leagues. I’m not up on all the issues they care about, so I don’t know how they’d feel about that. But I do know they would support a Scottish football regulator, along the same lines as the one being introduced in England.

I know this because Scottish football fans have been surveyed on that dozens of times, and there is overwhelming support for it everywhere.

When it comes to the Motherwell fans and their campaigns, I like the cut of their jib. There’s a flag you sometimes see at their games that says something about “No To Modern Football.” What they mean by that, of course, is the horrible homogenised marketing culture that surrounds the game—one where clubs just want to sell kits, kit manufacturers release three every year, ticket prices continue to rise, and the difficulties of watching your team multiply.

Look at the stunt the SFA has just pulled with the semi final tickets to see what this Brave New World would look like; if you’re not at the Cool Kids table then hard lines, you’re out. Change is not always for the better.

These are concerns shared by fans across the spectrum. These are concerns that fans should be able to come together and campaign on.

The Scottish Football Supporters Association sends me constant correspondence, and I probably should involve myself a little more in what they do. I keep telling myself that I will, because I like what they do, I support what they do, I like how they present themselves, and I like the ideas they espouse.

But I sometimes think that because we are a successful club, our supporters are less inclined to rock the boat than they would be if we weren’t. It’s only when you realise how completely our hands are tied by our environment that it dawns on fans every now and again. That mostly happens on European nights, when we’re being well beaten by some team that spends 25 times what we do.

Our domestic rivals snigger at that because that’s the gap that exists between us and them most of the time. But they are motivated, at least, to care about that gap on a weekly basis. We are not.

We think about it once in a blue moon or when we lose a key player to some mid-table Premiership side that, if they weren’t playing in the most cash-rich league in the world, wouldn’t be anywhere near an attractive proposition for a player leaving this club.

In Germany, the 50+1 rule works brilliantly and provides clubs with all the protection they will ever need from predatory ownership. German football has been in rude health for decades now, and at least one reason for that is they always seem to learn lessons from defeat and disaster.

Their darkest hour was losing 5-1 to England in front of their own fans. The consequences of that single defeat re-shaped German football. A little over a decade later, the reforms that flowed from that result saw their national team smash host-nation Brazil in the 2014 World Cup, putting seven past them, in the semi-final on the way to winning the tournament itself.

Some countries learn lessons. Some do not. Some associations embrace reform and change. Some do not. German football was already asking all the right questions, and it didn’t even need a regulator because it had the 50+1 rule.

That rule explicitly prevents German clubs from participating in any so-called European Super League. Since those clubs are owned or controlled by fans, the idea that any of them would sign up for such a controversial and destructive competition is essentially zero. That’s why there wasn’t a single German club in the original lineup for the breakaway tournament, and why the German FA immediately distanced itself from the whole thing.

English football has no such rule. Most countries don’t. But at least England is taking the issue of ownership seriously. Their new football regulator will attempt to prevent key club assets from being sold off by considering stadiums part of the local heritage and essentially ring-fencing them from predatory owners.

Motherwell interest me because The Well Society doesn’t just talk a good game. These aren’t posturing fans who pay lip service to the idea of ownership but would sell out the moment a good offer came along.

In July last year, a former Netflix vice president—whose wife is an executive at Snapchat—expressed an interest in buying a large stake in the club and taking on a controlling role. These were people of good standing, with solid reputations in business. They wanted to do a docu-series on the club in the style of Welcome to Wrexham.

The Motherwell board was all for it. But when it went back to The Well Society for ratification, the fans were wholeheartedly opposed. Erik Barmack and his wife withdrew their investment offer and walked away.

The Motherwell supporters had one major stipulation: they remain in charge of their club’s destiny. They would maintain their majority shareholding to protect it from any negative impacts a takeover might bring. That is integrity. That is putting the club’s long-term future ahead of any short-term shot in the arm.

It could not be more different from what we’re seeing across the city right now. Motherwell have almost gone out of business a couple of times. But their fans are in charge now, and they are determined to run their club sustainably, with the best interests of the supporters as the fundamental guiding principle.

I respect that. I admire it. I wish it were us.

Across the city, their supporters have not been consulted at all on what is taking place, and amazingly, we can surmise from the cheerleading that’s going on how they would act if they were consulted on it.

They have done no due diligence of their own.

They could not care less who the new owners are, what changes they want to make, or what consequences may follow, as long as the manager—whoever that is—is promised a pot of money to spend this summer.

It blows my mind. The difference in philosophies is so great that you can barely believe these people exist within the same sphere of football. I know which of the two supports has the right idea, and I wish The Well Society nothing but the best and I hope that in times to come they can be a model for how fan ownership might work with us.

Our latest podcast is up now folks! Please watch, like, share and subscribe!