By grabar
August 17 2010

Craig Bellamy's move to Cardiff has upset Motherwell Chairman John Boyle and forced him to go public on his moves to get the Bluebirds to settle an outstanding debt. Motherwell today finally lost patience with Cardiff as they look to reclaim the £175000 the Welsh side still owe them for the sale of Paul Quinn in the summer of 2009.

Despite having financial troubles of their own not that long ago themselves they are now prepared to take their case through the legal process, including the potential of a winding up order for Cardiff.

There has even been the idea of Sheriff Officers heading to Cardiff on a game day and taking the money from the turnstiles to settle the debt.

Motherwell have been active in the media today with both Chairman John Boyle and Chief Executive Leeann Dempster appearing on Radio and Television as they put their case to the public.

This appears to have upset the Cardiff Manager Dave Jones who accused Boyle of jumping on the "bandwagon" and hijacking the signing of Craig Bellamy. It would appear this seems to have been the catalyst for Motherwell's frustration.

I can understand this as Bellamy is reported to be taking no cut in his Manchester City wages, reported to be £90000 per week. Therefore it would appear that it would only take two weeks of this wage to clear the Motherwell debt!

Cardiff claim it will be settled in the next week, and that Motherwell have nothing to worry about. Motherwell seem to have a great deal of suspicion around this promise given the promises that appear to have been broken already.

While I understand many cynics who will say Motherwell are getting their just desserts after what they did to other clubs and businesses when they went into administration.

Having said that two wrongs don't make a right, and they have happily been signing half a dozen players when they haven't paid off the outstanding debts on one they signed last summer - surely something fundamentally wrong there.

The sum of money may be small in Premier League and Championship terms but for Motherwell it is about 6% of their normal £3 million turnover, and could in fact account to three players added to their pool.

Hopefully the matter will be sorted in the next few weeks and Motherwell will only be mentioned on the back pages for playing football rather than legal matters.