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Club Statement

As one major part of our planned strategic restructure of the club, ICTFC are delighted to announce an innovative agreement with League 1 side Kelty Hearts which will see the club move our training base to the Fife club’s New Central Park Stadium.

This creative partnership will mean that we will hire their excellent facilities which include a 3g pitch, onsite grass pitches and offices for our coaching staff, as our training base during the week starting from this coming pre-season in June.

The last few years have seen the geographic challenges in getting players to move to the Highlands become ever harder for a number of reasons.

Caledonian Stadium will always be our home, but other factors in Scottish football have changed and where we train should not be an impediment to the quality of the players we can attract to Caley Thistle, or to our potential to progress.

The commercial success of the city of Inverness – which will always be our home - both as a tourist destination and a place to live, has led to very high prices for the accommodation we require to house players. In addition to these high costs which our competitors do not carry, the extremely limited housing stock in Inverness continues to be both a challenge and a huge factor working against us.

Increased playing budgets in and around the central belt has meant that on many occasions, even when we have offered players more favourable terms than our competitors, sometimes even agreed deals, we have then been told that the player has changed his mind due to challenges relocating their families. Support structures in and around the families of players may all be in and around the central belt, partners will have jobs where they live and moving kids schools to the Highlands and moving home itself can just be seen as impractical for a one or two year contract.

It makes it particularly challenging for us to sign senior players, a category which through no fault of our budget, or of previous ICT Managers, we have struggled to attract in the last few seasons.

Similarly, our location means that we miss out on the opportunity of signing promising players from the larger clubs in Scotland, on loan or otherwise.

For the avoidance of any doubt we absolutely intend to continue to develop our own homegrown Highland boys and we will take the appropriate steps to make sure that by being creative, innovative and practical, they do not miss out on the chance to have a pathway to first team football with their team. We have a proud tradition of introducing local players in to our first team and this will absolutely continue.

We obviously never intended to be in the same division as Kelty when originally exploring this concept, but football throws strange things at you sometimes and having reassessed the proposition and judged that the pros still far outweigh the cons, we would like to thank the Board of Kelty Hearts and MD Stefan Winiarski and his management team for considering this unique to the SPFL partnership, and then seeing and agreeing on the possibilities and benefits for both clubs.

To reiterate, by moving our footballing department's training base to central Scotland, both the club's Board of Directors and the club's First Team Management feel we give ourselves the best possible chance to attract the highest quality players to the club, allowing some of the players we sign to also live in and around the central belt while playing for ICTFC.

We now look forward to taking further positive strides on and off the pitch to address the football and financial challenges we face we believe this exciting opportunity to help us attract players previously not available to us and build a better squad, is one of the first steps we can make and we hope to develop further innovative partnerships.

Inverness is and will always be our home.

The Caledonian Stadium will always be where we play our football. We hope this venture will help us achieve our goal in giving our supporters a team to be proud of.

Edited May 24, 20242 yr by The Mantis

7 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

This club has never been able to come especially close to generating income to match its football expenditure and I can’t see how anyone could conceivably think otherwise. For several years after the near financial collapse of 1999, £5M from Tullochs kept it going but more recently that has given way to raising extra share capital (significantly almost £1M from Muirfield Mills) and cadging loans such as from Ross Morrison. Unfortunately, two attempts to raise income by non-football means - the Concert Company and the Battery Farm - have been catastrophic financial failures and the former (or possibly arguably both) also brought severe reputational damage.

Thank you for revealing that all-time losses come to £6.7M. I had only got as far as establishing £3.5M (more than half of that) within only the last six years, so it’s clear that the funding gulf is accelerating. I’ve made the ballpark estimate that, additional to initial stadium funding, ICT has cumulatively needed £10M of other people’s money to get to where it is today.

But if you think that’s a lot, I would also estimate that the corresponding figure for Ross County is around £20M and in the last 10 years alone £11.4M in loans from its parent company have been written off, so loss making seems to be accelerating there as well. The difference between the two clubs is that Roy MacGregor has been a far larger, more reliable and longer term source of “bailout cash” than ICT’s. In fact the scale and longevity of Roy’s support have been quite remarkable - although what happens when that eventually dries up is another matter.

As far as ICT is concerned, I’m struggling to see a sustainable way out of this…. but as sure as hell, decanting the first team to Fife sure isn’t among the options.

On that particular subject, judging by what random people I’ve had casual conversation with over the last week, I have been absolutely dismayed at the laughing stock that the club has now become in the public eye.

If you take out the losses from the first few years and the last few years then that would suggest that during the middle 20ish year period the club was actually living within it's means and achieving success on the park.

8 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

Considering that we were told that the Battery Farm was going to take in £3.4M, I think that what has actually transpired must surely be classified as a failure alongside the scale of the club’s problems.

And don’t start me on the Concert Company. I still cringe at the thought that what was talked up as a financial panacea failed miserably and left a lot of honest traders out of pocket whilst hammering the last nail into the coffin of the club’s credibility with the local business community. Meanwhile, Scot Gardiner presented the fact that the club had ring fenced stadium rent for itself before the CC went bust- hence increasing these traders’ losses - as some kind of achievement at the AGM. I suspect that there will be people in the very local business community that the club needs to get on board now shouting “Karma!!” and laughing their arses off at what is now happening.

My first phrase was that the projects failed miserably, and I’m not disputing how damaging they have been in various respects. Just pointing out that they have made significant financial contributions to help te club’s finances. So you could say they were catastrophic and I would agree, but they were absolutely not financially catastrophic. Let’s not be in denial that they actually made us a lot of money, which is simple fact.

2 hours ago, STFU said:

If you take out the losses from the first few years and the last few years then that would suggest that during the middle 20ish year period the club was actually living within it's means and achieving success on the park.

There definitely some good years in the middle but from memory I think they were mainly our years in the top flight, where incomes are so much higher, and as an added bonus players can be sold for significantly higher amounts (£1m between Christie and Niculae being our best ones)

6 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

My first phrase was that the projects failed miserably, and I’m not disputing how damaging they have been in various respects. Just pointing out that they have made significant financial contributions to help te club’s finances. So you could say they were catastrophic and I would agree, but they were absolutely not financially catastrophic. Let’s not be in denial that they actually made us a lot of money, which is simple fact.

You seem to be working on the premise that the club had no costs relating to the concert and battery farm projects.

You also can't ignore the associated financial implications.  Concentrating on these projects instead of the bread and butter activities meant the club had no income from things like hospitality, player/match sponsorship etc.

48 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

My first phrase was that the projects failed miserably, and I’m not disputing how damaging they have been in various respects. Just pointing out that they have made significant financial contributions to help te club’s finances. So you could say they were catastrophic and I would agree, but they were absolutely not financially catastrophic. Let’s not be in denial that they actually made us a lot of money, which is simple fact.

I would have to argue that the CC and the BF were pursued as means of attracting the large amount of money needed to bail a seriously financially challenged club out of a big hole, but they have only realised pennies in comparison. As a result, more than two years have been wasted on a wild goose chase instead of something far more useful, and as a result the club appears to be on the brink of insolvency. That to me is a financial disaster a bit like someone getting into a million pound debt but letting it run because they think they’ve won a pools jackpot - and then discovering it’s only a thousand quid.

4 hours ago, STFU said:

If you take out the losses from the first few years and the last few years then that would suggest that during the middle 20ish year period the club was actually living within it's means and achieving success on the park.

I don’t think you’re too far wrong there!

The vital component is Tullochs. The debt in 1999 before they came in was said to be £2.3M; that disappeared as a result of a deal over the stadium which was subsequently donated back to the club, Tulloch’s £729K in shares - the biggest single holding - was later donated to the ICT Charitable Trust and Tullochs built the North and South stands on less than 7 weeks to ensure that the team came back from Aberdeen early in 2005. For several years Tullochs controlled the Board and there were even a couple of very modest profits in there. The Tulloch interest had departed by the mid-2010s and it’s since then that financial decline has set in again. I’m not arguing a 100% cause and effect here because there will have been other factors but there’s a strong link between financial and playing success and the Tulloch involvement.

Edited June 2, 20242 yr by Charles Bannerman

13 hours ago, Yngwie said:

My first phrase was that the projects failed miserably, and I’m not disputing how damaging they have been in various respects. Just pointing out that they have made significant financial contributions to help te club’s finances. So you could say they were catastrophic and I would agree, but they were absolutely not financially catastrophic. Let’s not be in denial that they actually made us a lot of money, which is simple fact.

No. It is not simple fact that these projects made us a lot of money.  

The Battery company was sold to 3 of the Club's directors who could simply have put the same anount of money into the club had they so wished.  Time will tell whether the Directors taking over ownership of the company is of more benefit to the club than if it had stayed with the club.

It is true the club received an income from the concert company's activities, but had the club just done the sensible thing and rented the ground out to a production company who knew what they were doing, the club would still have received significant income.  No doubt the Concert Company was happy to pay the club a bigger sum for the rental of the stadium and the time of club employees etc than a proper production company would have done, but any extra income was at the expense of local business who were left out of pocket by the failure of the enterprise.  If the club made more out of the venture than they would have done by simply hiring facilities out to a production company, then the decent thing would have been for the club to honour the debts from its own profiteering.

Against any profits the club may have made from these ventures are the opportunity costs.  Both projects, and the concert fiasco in particular, have resulted in huge reputational damage to the club.  As a result, the club will have been losing significant income which might have come from local businesses in terms of sponsorship and hospitality.  Club staff and directors have been spending a totally disproportional amount of time on these vanity projects and have been ignoring the bread and butter business of the football club.  A little bit more focus on the footballing side of things and we might not have been relegated this season.  A bit more focus on the wide range of shortcomings highlighted in the Supporters Trust's matchday survey and we might be seeing a few more through the turnstiles and spending a bit more when they do come.

It's the damage it has done to the club Inverness Caledonian Thistle in the name of the Concert Company and the battery farm dragging us down to the mire that will haunt us for many years even if we survive as a football club.  A bad debtor is regarded as a bad debtor for many years especially in the Highlands!  It's sad to say but I think there is worse to come as our board are not talking and those who are are trying to cover their a**e. 

23 minutes ago, DoofersDad said:

No. It is not simple fact that these projects made us a lot of money.  

The Battery company was sold to 3 of the Club's directors who could simply have put the same anount of money into the club had they so wished. 

But they didn’t, did they. Directors seem to have stopped making unconditional donations to the club a long time ago. The battery farm project created an asset, a risky asset, that they could purchase and provide the club with significant funds it would not otherwise have had.

3 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

But they didn’t, did they. Directors seem to have stopped making unconditional donations to the club a long time ago. The battery farm project created an asset, a risky asset, that they could purchase and provide the club with significant funds it would not otherwise have had.

Ross Morrison said on the podcast he donated £40K last week but it would be the last if I heard him correctly.

Yes he did, taking his loan balance to £1.5m apparently.

https://www.theguardian.com/football/article/2024/jun/03/inverness-caledonian-thistle-scotttish-football-kelty-duncan-ferguson

Euan Murray's take.

I see the 2023 accounts still aren’t available at Companies House. No idea what is actually happening there but a possible explanation is that IF they filed paper copies, which they are entitled to do, then provided they were received by the specified deadline the club would have met its obligations. With paper copies, it usually takes Companies House about a week to scan and upload them.

41 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

I see the 2023 accounts still aren’t available at Companies House. No idea what is actually happening there but a possible explanation is that IF they filed paper copies, which they are entitled to do, then provided they were received by the specified deadline the club would have met its obligations. With paper copies, it usually takes Companies House about a week to scan and upload them.

Well, I suppose that’s possible, but why would they post them when they have been sending things digitally for a while?  Surely they can’t afford to pay unnecessary postage just now!

Perhaps they were hand delivered 🤣🤣🤣

25 minutes ago, DoofersDad said:

Surely they can’t afford to pay unnecessary postage just now!

Have to say this was a first class post 

23 minutes ago, Leaky Blinder said:

Have to say this was a first class post 

Of course, it has DoofersDad’s stamp on it.

From the Ewan Murray Graun article;

A blunt reality is that Inverness could win their first eight matches next season and nobody would care where they train.

I don't think that's true.

 

We're now eleven days on from the Kelty announcement and five days on from Ross Morrison's dialogue with the Wyness Shuffle and subsequent board meeting. Despite confirmation from Alan Savage that he/Orion will finance the Academy moving forward and then a flurry of rumours on Friday past we're pretty much none the wiser where we stand and getting ever closer to pre-season in what is undoubtedly a make or break season for the club.

Is it too much for the people entrusted with the running of the club to give us an update as to where we go from here? It's an absolute farce and yet, to the best of our knowledge, we continue to pay the wages of our alleged CEO who presides over the whole pantomime with complete and utter disregard for the fans, players and club staff.  It's an utter omnishambles from top to bottom and we need answers now. 

47 minutes ago, ymip said:

We're now eleven days on from the Kelty announcement and five days on from Ross Morrison's dialogue with the Wyness Shuffle and subsequent board meeting. Despite confirmation from Alan Savage that he/Orion will finance the Academy moving forward and then a flurry of rumours on Friday past we're pretty much none the wiser where we stand and getting ever closer to pre-season in what is undoubtedly a make or break season for the club.

Is it too much for the people entrusted with the running of the club to give us an update as to where we go from here? It's an absolute farce and yet, to the best of our knowledge, we continue to pay the wages of our alleged CEO who presides over the whole pantomime with complete and utter disregard for the fans, players and club staff.  It's an utter omnishambles from top to bottom and we need answers now. 

...and in the last 14 days or so, I appear to have had about 10 emails from the Trust with updates, notifications or other stuff. So much email that my spam filter prompted be to confirm it was not unwanted email    #Communication

 

 

That's the thing I'm worried about now, no communication from the club about updates on players, who's staying or going.  What team are we going to have nevermind where they will based. You just want to hear something!

Park n Ride deal has been shelved according to the Inverness Courier.

Who will be the new Chairman? 

Morrison is offski

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/exclusive-ross-morrison-resigns-as-chairman-inverness-caled-352334/

“I would ask the fans to rally round the club at this time and show their support by not only purchasing their season tickets but also getting involved directly with the club to see how they can help".

Many have tried - few have succeeded in recent years. 

 

Genuinely sorry that RM went before the CEO to be honest. He seems genuine, and we know he was a supporter long before he was the chairman. With him gone, the main problem still remains.