Any Motherwell fans passing by Fir Park yesterday afternoon may have had cause for their hearts to skip a beat or two if they saw Bryan Jackson entering the building.
Jackson is historically the last man that any club would want to call upon, given that if you needed his services, a crisis was almost certainly ensuing.
The administrator has been the go-to figure as an insolvency expert for a host of top football clubs as they looked to claw their way back from the brink of financial ruin. Indeed, he was instrumental in saving Motherwell after they entered administration back in 2002.
Yesterday he was back at the club on a more positive footing, helping to promote the launch of Club Development Scotland, a new consultancy unit of Supporter’s Direct Scotland. Jackson will act as a consultant for the new service, which will in turn provide support to the Well Society as they look to achieve their goal of owning the Steelmen.
Jackson believes that the fan ownership model is the way ahead for clubs like Motherwell, and he urged supporters not to wait until another financial meltdown before they back the initiative.
“The interesting thing about my job over the years is that when the crisis hits, fans fully mobilise,” he said.
“Full mobilisation only really happens though because of a crisis. I think what we’re about here and what we’re trying to do is get the mobilisation prior to the crisis.
“Even if there is not going to be a crisis, it doesn’t mean that fan ownership isn’t the way forward anyway. When you see the power of fans, it’s the one thing that isn’t on a club’s balance sheet, the goodwill from fans.
“There’s always a hardcore support, whether it’s 100 or 100,000, and if you look at all the administrations we’ve been involved in, it’s been the fans who have saved the clubs each time.
“Interestingly the last four clubs that we’ve been involved in – Dundee, Dunfermline, Portsmouth and Hearts – they’ve actually all been sold to the fans. There’s certainly a trend now that that’s the way forward.
“At Motherwell some fans had already mobilised. ‘Well Worth Saving was already there, but I don’t think it occurred to normal fans that it was something that was required prior to the crisis happening.
“The club had a good history in terms of its’ financial stewardship, it was only latterly when the industry became overheated and clubs were chasing the holy grail of TV money that the crisis started to happen.
“Prior to that it was understandable that fans never thought ‘I need to be more involved’, or ‘I need to look at ways of raising finance’. I don’t think it occurred to anyone back then.
“The biggest obstacle every time is trying to get that engagement if it’s not required, because fans understandably are quite comfortable with the club being managed by somebody.
“If you see the reasons for the demise of clubs over the years and why they got into the difficulties they did, it tended to be because they were reliant on one person.
“So if that person’s circumstances change, or they run out of money, then it goes into the crisis.
“If you have fan ownership then the fans are actually managing the club, there is greater transparency and there is less chance of that happening.
“That’s not to say it can’t happen – it’s got to be the right fans managing the club – but I think it reduces the chances of that happening.”
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