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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, 20241 yr by The Mantis

Surely it can't be more than £150k we're spending on accommodation. Given the fact we've inked a six figure deal with Kelty the numbers don't seem to add up, particularly when you factor in the loss of season ticket income. 

15 minutes ago, STFU said:

£300k on renting can't be right.  That's 25 properties at a grand a month.

Unless they've all been living it up by staying in the Kingsmills Hotel.

If we were really paying that sort of sums in rent for players accomodation, why did the club not buy some properties for players.  That's what other clubs do.

That way they are not paying silly money to line the pockets of others and the club retains the assets.

You wouldn't think that several board members make a living in the construction/property rental businesses.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, LisleRightPeg said:

I wonder if the players under contract have had meetings with the club to inform them of this craziness. Going by how things are being run I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t. The latest podcast episode mentioned a youth player had found out via them. Talk about disrespect 😡

If you think about it, the proposed change to their contract is MATERIAL. If anyone else was asked to work 135 miles away from their centre of duty for a significant part of the working week, this would have consequences for the contract. Some almost certainly have young children to consider.

4 minutes ago, highlandexile said:

If we were really paying that sort of sums in rent for players accomodation, why did the club not buy some properties for players.  That's what other clubs do.

That way they are not paying silly money to line the pockets of others and the club retains the assets.

You wouldn't think that several board members make a living in the construction/property rental businesses.

Sounds like we should be building a hotel at the stadium!

Just now, Yngwie said:

Sounds like we should be building a hotel at the stadium!

And based on the season we’ve just had, guests would pay extra to not get a view of the pitch!

22 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Sounds like we should be building a hotel at the stadium!

There's some building work in the offing down at the stadium

I have not had my say in this since the news broke so here is my take on it and fwiw I'm certainly NOT in favour of this so bear that in mind when I post my below take on the goings on 👍.

I can actually see where the dud Gardiner is coming from with this but only in a business sense, he wants our club to be successful and hopefully come up at the first time of asking so the only way that can happen, in his mind is by trying to build as strong a squad as possible and that, again in his mind, is only possible by moving training to Kelty as that MAY entice top players to the club in that they can stay in the central belt.  Now I 100% agree with most on here who say that we should build our team around our youngsters as I'm sure they are capable, plus tap into the Highland League or even league 2 market as again I'm sure there are players capable of making the step up.

I would rather we have a successful team especially this season as I want us promoted back to the Championship so maybe this is the only way we can do that but I would also like to see local players such as Lewis Nicholson and Keith Bray get opportunities too so I'm kinda torn because I do want success but preferably with a team of local youngsters but maybe the only way we'll be successful (especially this season) is by going down this road 🤷🤷.

 

As I said, do I hell support the move but I do understand it from a business point of view but what Mr Gardiner didn't realise was how much this would insense our support!

20 minutes ago, CaleyTennis85 said:

I have not had my say in this since the news broke so here is my take on it and fwiw I'm certainly NOT in favour of this so bear that in mind when I post my below take on the goings on 👍.

I can actually see where the dud Gardiner is coming from with this but only in a business sense, he wants our club to be successful and hopefully come up at the first time of asking so the only way that can happen, in his mind is by trying to build as strong a squad as possible and that, again in his mind, is only possible by moving training to Kelty as that MAY entice top players to the club in that they can stay in the central belt.  Now I 100% agree with most on here who say that we should build our team around our youngsters as I'm sure they are capable, plus tap into the Highland League or even league 2 market as again I'm sure there are players capable of making the step up.

I would rather we have a successful team especially this season as I want us promoted back to the Championship so maybe this is the only way we can do that but I would also like to see local players such as Lewis Nicholson and Keith Bray get opportunities too so I'm kinda torn because I do want success but preferably with a team of local youngsters but maybe the only way we'll be successful (especially this season) is by going down this road 🤷🤷.

 

As I said, do I hell support the move but I do understand it from a business point of view but what Mr Gardiner didn't realise was how much this would insense our support!

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head that it’s a business decision - and normal business logic often doesn’t work well when applied in football.

2 hours ago, Charles Bannerman said:

£300K, if we make a ballpark estimate of £500 per month per head in shared accommodation, would represent 600 “person months” of accommodation - in other words, even if it was being paid for all 12 months, this would be enough to accommodate 50 people for a whole year. How many people require to be accommodated, given that a number of them are local? Even £200K would accommodate 33.

No chance 300k can be right, given the amount of settled players like Doran, Devine, Ridgers, Mckay and presumably others that have their own places and won't be in club digs, then a fair amount of players who'll be sharing gaffs with each other that are unlikely to be on club books. Younger players are probably still at their parents or have managed to rent a flat. Its really just SG making a big hoohaa over getting digs for maybe 4 or 5 players, and moving us for Dunc's and Balloon's convenience.

1 minute ago, Jack Waddington said:

No chance 300k can be right, given the amount of settled players like Doran, Devine, Ridgers, Mckay and presumably others that have their own places and won't be in club digs, then a fair amount of players who'll be sharing gaffs with each other that are unlikely to be on club books. Younger players are probably still at their parents or have managed to rent a flat. Its really just SG making a big hoohaa over getting digs for maybe 4 or 5 players, and moving us for Dunc's and Balloon's convenience.

Figures plucked out of the ground by Gardiner . He’s just desperately hanging on as he knows he is finished in football . He thought a minority would be against his plans and wasn’t expecting the vast amount of a backlash that he is now getting and its only building and building . He is a guy that is only interested in himself and not the club. It’s about time someone from the board stood up against him . Some must really have the club at heart and a mind of their own ???

These are really worrying times.  There seems to be so many important issues which need clarification and for which the more you look into them, the more murky and bizarre they seem to be.  I'll just pick up here on one the bizarre ones.  

Folk on here are saying the the appeal for the BESS application has not yet been submitted and that there are now just 3 weeks to lodge the appeal.  The club told us this was vital for the future of the club and any delay would have serious ramifications.  Presumably, the sooner the appeal is in, the sooner it can be heard and, assuming the club wins its appeal, the sooner they will be able to get some income from the project.  The reasons for refusing the application seemed to come down to the fact that the club had annoyed some councillors rather than for any meaningful problem with the application.  It should have been possible to get the appeal paperwork sorted in a few days, so why is it not in after several weeks and with time running out?  Morrison told us that we stood to make £3.4 million from this.  I understand that due them making a mess of the application, the company which was going to develop the site has pulled out, but Morrison also told us that there would be no difficulty getting another energy company to build and operate the BESS.  Maybe a 2nd company would not pay as much for the site, but based  on what Morrison has said, one would expect a sum equivalent to at least one years turnover for the club.  In these circumstances, you would expect getting the appeal in would top priority for the club.  The lack of progress is bizarre.

Link this with the Kelty connection and it start to look sinister rather than bizarre. The Kelty project is justified partly on the current costs of accommodating players moving to the inverness area to play for us.  Yet the decision to make this highly controversial move which in itself has significant financial commitment has been taken without knowing whether the club will have this huge capital injection or not.  It just does not make sense.  

 

31 minutes ago, Jack Waddington said:

No chance 300k can be right, given the amount of settled players like Doran, Devine, Ridgers, Mckay and presumably others that have their own places and won't be in club digs, then a fair amount of players who'll be sharing gaffs with each other that are unlikely to be on club books. Younger players are probably still at their parents or have managed to rent a flat. Its really just SG making a big hoohaa over getting digs for maybe 4 or 5 players, and moving us for Dunc's and Balloon's convenience.

Is the club paying for Gardiner's Tornagrain pad?

On 5/24/2024 at 9:15 PM, DoofersDad said:

They don't even keep their website remotely up to date.  Liam Delgarno resigned from the Board back in December.

That’s because he’s back on the board! 

On 5/24/2024 at 9:15 PM, caley1 said:

If Grassa Fife etc have voted for this then I’m disgusted 

Grassa the only one that voted no from what I’m hearing and supposedly has resigned.

For those going to the meeting tonight please have a listen to the Pod Cast first. TWS has brought it all home to me about the strength of feeling about this shambolic situation. It's a long one but, if nothing else, listen to the Falkirk guy, John McInally, [1.13.50]. His side spent 5 season in L1 and tells it like it is. Also take in Lee Tarling's thoughts [2.08.41] it'll have you in tears if you are a true ICT fan.

9 hours ago, CELTIC1CALEY3 said:

If you think about it, the proposed change to their contract is MATERIAL. If anyone else was asked to work 135 miles away from their centre of duty for a significant part of the working week, this would have consequences for the contract. Some almost certainly have young children to consider.

I wonder what legal action is available to staff and players. I remember attempts were made to move my place of employment from Inverness to Alness along with others, and the union successfully fought that one off. 

Was also wondering with all the negative press, what player in their right mind would want to play for us. I suspect only those who can't find a club elsewhere. 

1 hour ago, CT1998 said:

Grassa the only one that voted no from what I’m hearing and supposedly has resigned.

Still showing as a Director on company’s house .

7 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

Folk on here are saying the the appeal for the BESS application has not yet been submitted and that there are now just 3 weeks to lodge the appeal.  The club told us this was vital for the future of the club and any delay would have serious ramifications.

Just so folk have some context to this the planning application was officially refused on or around 14 March 2024. Section 6 of the Guide to Planning Appeals in Scotland states that the limit for appealing is three months from the date of the decision. Looking at the DPEA website shows a total of six appeals, since the battery form decision, within the Highland Council area. Only three of them are a Planning Permission Appeal (PPA) and they are located in Farr or Drumnadrochit.

So this means that no planning appeal has been submitted for the BESS (yet!) and they have something like 17 days to get one in.

3 minutes ago, RiG said:

Just so folk have some context to this the planning application was officially refused on or around 14 March 2024. Section 6 of the Guide to Planning Appeals in Scotland states that the limit for appealing is three months from the date of the decision. Looking at the DPEA website shows a total of six appeals, since the battery form decision, within the Highland Council area. Only three of them are a Planning Permission Appeal (PPA) and they are located in Farr or Drumnadrochit.

So this means that no planning appeal has been submitted for the BESS (yet!) and they have something like 17 days to get one in.

And did Ross Morrison or his puppet not say some weeks ( 2 months ) ago that the appeal was in ? 

What the Chairman did say straight after the Battery Farm project was rejected by the Council was 

“We want to thank the hundreds of Caley Thistle fans and the businesses and organisations who have been entirely supportive in our quest to improve the club’s financial model and the city’s energy security.

“On behalf of the board and as we move into our historic 30th year and a crucial end-of-season period, we need to show that by sticking together and sticking to our values, by backing Duncan (Ferguson) and the team, nothing can stop us getting to where we want to be this season and in our next 30 years.”

 

A few days later announcing Scot Young's appointment they said ' Scott will continue to facilitate dialogue on key matters between the club and the supporters.'

As we now know there was no dialogue about the Fife project.

15 hours ago, LisleRightPeg said:

I wonder if the players under contract have had meetings with the club to inform them of this craziness. Going by how things are being run I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t. The latest podcast episode mentioned a youth player had found out via them. Talk about disrespect 😡

No player knew anything. Youth coaches found out whilst on holiday. This has been dreamt up by Ferguson and Gardiner and has shown zero respect for anyone at the club. Players are furious, ex players incredulous and staff in melt down. It is an absolute shambles 

31 minutes ago, caley1 said:

And did Ross Morrison or his puppet not say some weeks ( 2 months ) ago that the appeal was in ? 

I don't know about that but the DPEA are pretty good at getting information online promptly so I'd expect it to be online if an appeal has been lodged.

1 hour ago, caley1 said:

Still showing as a Director on company’s house .

Apparently has but not been accepted !

8 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

These are really worrying times.  There seems to be so many important issues which need clarification and for which the more you look into them, the more murky and bizarre they seem to be.  I'll just pick up here on one the bizarre ones.  

Folk on here are saying the the appeal for the BESS application has not yet been submitted and that there are now just 3 weeks to lodge the appeal.  The club told us this was vital for the future of the club and any delay would have serious ramifications.  Presumably, the sooner the appeal is in, the sooner it can be heard and, assuming the club wins its appeal, the sooner they will be able to get some income from the project.  The reasons for refusing the application seemed to come down to the fact that the club had annoyed some councillors rather than for any meaningful problem with the application.  It should have been possible to get the appeal paperwork sorted in a few days, so why is it not in after several weeks and with time running out?  Morrison told us that we stood to make £3.4 million from this.  I understand that due them making a mess of the application, the company which was going to develop the site has pulled out, but Morrison also told us that there would be no difficulty getting another energy company to build and operate the BESS.  Maybe a 2nd company would not pay as much for the site, but based  on what Morrison has said, one would expect a sum equivalent to at least one years turnover for the club.  In these circumstances, you would expect getting the appeal in would top priority for the club.  The lack of progress is bizarre.

 

Yes it would be good to get an update what is happening with the appeal. But if part of the problem with the initial application was that it was rushed and incomplete, it would make perfect sense for the club and its legal representatives to spend as much time as it takes to get it right and make the best possible case.

9 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

Is the club paying for Gardiner's Tornagrain pad?

It wouldn’t surprise me if they are.