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This is at the heart of the problem. It is all very well for the club to say we all need to pull together, but what exactly are we supposed to be pulling together on? Given the club's recent record of catastrophic decision making, are we simply expected to dip deeper into our pockets to finance more bad decisions taken without any consultation? In his recent Wyness Shuffle interview, Morrison stated that the 2022/3 cup run windfall of around £800k was used to pay off creditors. He also said that the club currently owe £300k to creditors. In other words, the club effectively has at least £500k less debt than it had at the start of the season. So what's the problem? Well, the problem is that they have made decisions based on money they were assuming would materialise but which hasn't. And it hasn't materialised because they mismanaged the BESS application and signed contracts which were not sufficiently robust. Communication on these issues has been poor and consultation non-existent. In the meantime, cash flow was managed because directors were putting money into the club on a loan basis in anticipation of forthcoming windfalls. Now there is no imminent windfall and the directors don't feel able to put more money into the club. The answer? Fans and new "investors" to put money into the club as part of the pulling togetherness! But hold on a minute! Morrison and Munro have both lodged charges against the club in order to protect their loans. In effect, this means that we, the long suffering fans, are expected to dip into our pockets and fork out money which can then be paid back to the very people who got the club into the mess in the first place! I am more than willing to spend as much on the club in League 1 as I did when we were in the Premiership - and more, but I don't want my money being used to pay back directors' loans. I want my money to help pay the wages of the players and the hard working staff at the stadium. I want my money to help with some of the stadium improvements required to address the issues raised in the Supporters Trust's matchday experience survey. If the club want us to "pull together" then I am more than willing to do so. But first, those who got us into this crisis have to take the lead and accept their accountability. Morrison and Munro should withdraw the charges they hold against the club and all directors who have bankrolled the club with loans should publicly declare that they are writing off those loans. Not only would that demonstrate accountability on their behalf, it would open the door to major investors who will not want to have a significant amount of their money swallowed up by repaying those who are responsible for the mess.

Totally agree Charles. I , and probably many others, would want clarification on a number of matters including the CEO before parting with money? The repercussions re journalists suggests to me a certain individual is very much still in charge?

Heard this booming out over the stadium tannoys while walking past yesterday

Pretty outrageous stuff, beggars belief this guy is allowed to 'work his notice', basically given time to cover up the utter shitshow that he has created. The credulity and all round cluelessness of the rest of the board in allowing this all to happen means that each and every one of them should be oot the door too.

I’m trying to get my head round any possible implications of season tickets needing to go on sale just at a time when an administrator may arrive and have full control over the income. The other consideration is how willing or otherwise supporters might be to pay for a full season up front if there’s any risk of the company ceasing to trade in later weeks or months should the administration process go badly. Which brings me to one of the fundamentals of this whole business… it’s very difficult to estimate how bad things are because there’s a complete lack of information - and indeed the system seems to be set up to prevent information being obtained since questions put through the club go unanswered alongside a warning that there could be repercussions for journalists attempting to obtain information on their own initiative.

And now, the end is near And so I face the final curtain My friend, I'll say it clear I'll state my case, of which I'm certain I've lived a life that's full I traveled each and every highway And more, much more than this I did it my way Regards Scot Gardener

Okay, They’ll do, how do we get them on board!

That was pretty nearly half an hour of airtime on Caley Thistle this afternoon. I have to say that I thought that Andrew and Nathan were absolutely superb on the programme - articulate, extremely well informed, passionate about the club and, in common with many other fans I’ve rubbed shoulders with recently - a credit to ICT!

The accounts being late is almost certainly because of the lack of certainty as to whether the club is a going concern. It seems increasingly certain that we are NOT a going concern. As for the AGM, I think everyone at the club has more important things to deal with over the next few weeks - yes it is supposed to happen in a prescribed timescale, but asking about the AGM right now feels like a a passenger on the Titanic heading to the lifeboats and asking what time breakfast will be served!

Yeah it's terrible that football clubs should be forced to operate in a financially responsible manner

If my understanding is right the SFA licensing says no club who has had an insolvency event in the past 3 years can hold a bronze license. The SPFL changed the rules last year to say that all clubs must have a bronze license as minimum to play in the leagues from the 2024/25 season. Buckie Thistle were refused promotion because they didn't have one. The above rule was not in place when Rangers went through their issues.

It gets grimmer by the day. On 29th Feb, the club filed a change of accounting reference date, so that the end of year accounts were to end on 30th May rather than the 31st. I seem to recall that someone (Yngwie?) explained that this was a common accounting device which allowed the due date for the current accounts to be submitted to be extended by a month. It sounds as if that would be done in the event of knowing there was a problem with the accounts. None of the few communications from the Board have made any reference to there being any problem with the accounts nor have they enlightened latterly why the accounts have not been filed at Companies House. In his Wyness Shuffle interview, Morrison said that it would be easy to provide any potential investor with relevant due diligence information. Bennett was saying that Gardiner had been tasked with seeking new investment from local firms. Surely, if anything, he should be tasked with getting the accounts sorted. If Gardiner is the one chasing potential investors, it seems unlikely that anyone is going to test Morrison's claim regarding due diligence. Gardiner would probably have more success going to Celtic Park to recruit for an Orange march than getting local businesses to invest whilst he is still on the payroll. It is beginning to look increasingly unlikely that we will have the pleasure of welcoming the mighty Annan Athletic back to Inverness this season.

Don't you just wish that we could get the truth - pr a morsel of it from the horse's mouth. It just goes to show what shackles or threats Gardiner has deployed.

The entire board are reprehensible.

Faith No More - Everything's Ruined We were so happy. Things worked out better than we had planned Capital from boy, woman and man We were like ink and paper Numbers on a calculator Knew arithmetic so well Working overtime completed what was assigned We had to multiply ourselves A bouncing little baby A shiny copper penny And he spent himself Would not listen to us But when he lost his appetite He lost his weight in friends Baby became a fat nickel so fast Then came puberty exponentially Soon our boy became a million People loved him so And helped him to grow Everyone knew the thing that was best Of course, he must invest A penny won't do, no A penny won't do, no A penny won't do, no A penny won't do, no But he made us proud He made us rich But how were we to know He's counterfeit? Now everything's ruined, yeah

I'd assume they will need income to pay the wages next month? Season Ticket sales would be the obvious option? However the end of the month seems a long way away given everything seems to change daily

Or this...

Indeed. But the problem is, that if there are people being chucked oot the door, you need to have some folk willing to come in the door.

Why would they sack Gardiner? Not long before quitting and leaving us in this state The (former) Chairman said that Gardiner had been 'loyal' and had been doing a good job. That terrified me because it clearly demonstrated the huge disconnect between the board and the reality of the situation with the fans and Gardiner. Did he not hear fans singing 'Gardiner GTF' week after week? The first thing I thought any half decent board would do after relegation would be to get rid of Gardiner but nope, we doubled down and with 'delight' announced the Kelty move. Personally I think it was just easier for them to employ him, let him tell them how amazing he was doing. Nobody seemed to ever have the backbone to question him, his decisions, his attitude, his methods or his recruitment. Some people have been saying for years he's detrimental to the club, nobody listened. Just pathetic all round.

At the time of the Buckie fiasco there was word that a number of other league clubs still had no bronze licences. If I remember correctly a date in June was the deadline for these licences to be issued? Presumably they(I can’t recall who) have been successful in obtaining the licence.

I've just had a quick look at the rules, and came to the same conclusion as Fraz. An insolvency event, of which appointing an administrator is one example, appears to lead to 3 years out in the cold. Seems damn stupid, especially if the administrator can find a way to keep the club running.

The cobbled together rules are somewhat contradicting. These rules in concert would effectively mean that any club having any kind of insolvency event would have to close its doors for 3 years, which would be absolutely ridiculous. Unless I'm missing something here?

Ma heid is spinning - ok so we could lose our bronze license, probably deservedly so, but is that the case in all circumstances when a club enters administration? What actually happened with the demise of Glasgow Rangers FC, did they lose their license and simply started afresh as a new company with a new name? Is that what we may need to do by winding up ICT FC and reinventing ourselves like New Rangers or Airdrie? I’m thoroughly confused by all the technicalities and certainly wouldn’t want to invest in such a mess if I was an outsider - if we’ve any chance of finding a rich saviour then they surely must need to have some local connection and a love for the club.

Do share.....

I can’t remember whether the communication was made just before or just after what I understand to have been the date of the CEO’s resignation which was 30th May.

Before any of the things you mention happen, a new buyer or investor will need to be found. This needs to happen very soon. If not the a club will go into administration. The running of the Club then falls to them and they begin paying off creditors etc with the Clubs assets(what ever they are), and seeing if there is any viable business left. My fear is they ask for season ticket money, that pays for whatever …. and we still go bust!

If the lowest figure quoted £5k per week and it's only for the weeks played and not 52 for the year for Fergusons wages we were still robbed last season

I’ve been thinking the same. I’ve joined the Trust + also made a small donation but I worry it’s all in vain? We’ve had no further information from the club so how can we do anything that has a positive impact on the club. I feel for all the players and staff who probably know nothing.

Charles mentioned that there had been a letter sent to the various media outlets in Inverness that if there were to be interviews given outwith the club giving permission there would be repercussions. Some personal thoughts: Eh what on earth?! Who thinks that is acceptable? I'll presume there was no name on it but we can all guess which person did it. I took from Kenny MacIntyre's input that the BBC in Glasgow received the same letter? Also tellingly someone (maybe him) said the normal people who do the talking are keeping quiet, think we can also all make an educated guess as to who that is.

So what happens now? The Kelty move has been aborted. Gardiner has resigned, supposedly. We wanted rid of Big Dunc too, but we seem to have accepted that he'll stay now. Season tickets aren't available yet - presumably the proposed boycott is off and we can snap them up as soon as they become available. But what about donations to the club via the Supporters' Trust? Are we hoping to build up a stockpile of dosh that will be so irresistible to the club that they will embrace the Trust and work together? Has the Club reached out to the Supporters' Trust yet or do they continue to ignore them? And what can we, the bemused supporters do to help to secure the future of the club? Any suggestions?

Sorry haven’t seen your message. There is availability for Annan and Dundee. You can pay in advance or on the day. Sorry we don’t do haircuts though.

Heading to Germany now. Uefa have refused permission to take micks flag in to Munich stadium as they say its to big. Ill still try and get it in but I'll hang it with pride all over Germany.

I fully understand,I have been looking at the forum for a while before registering an account .. some forums are nonsense and not worthwhile so certainly I have seen some comments on various posts across the year . To your point about what amount .. that will be dictated by what the club needs to go forward , I appreciate that everyone has a threshold in terms of what they can put in . I am not saying people should be putting themselves into debt to help the club . My point was that the season ticket money and merch money only kicks the can down the road and buys some time,the club needs its fans , for example how many fans went to the cup final last year ? 8k maybe if half of that commits £50 that's 200k .. there is ways to raise money from the fans . There needs to be a sustainable business model which will ensure that there is a club to support going forward and the fans have a massive part to play here. As I said before the fans wanted dodds sacked it happened the fans wanted robbo gone it happened the fans wanted Kelty move reversed it happened the fans wanted morrison out it happened the fans wanted Gardiner gone it's in the process .. time for the fans to back the club here and it needs to sustainable investment outwith season tickets .. either that or more than 1000 folk need to buy season tickets . The attendance figures attending matches is very poor and has been since relegation from spl . Yes the product on the park isn't great but that's what it is with the resources the clubs got . Time to back the club

We did not continue player sponsorship last season mainly because of this man. This site has sponsored a player for the last 25+ years, either personally by me out of my own pocket for the first few years, or via a group of the users on here, or sometimes both. We always tried to sponsor young local lads as they sometimes did not get the same attention as bigger names. We are proud to have sponsored Grant Munro through his entire ICT career, from youngster on the bench to club captain until he left ICT, and until last year, had been doing the same thing with Cammy Harper who it seems will unfortunately (for us but not him hopefully) take the same path and leave ICT. Once it has been confirmed that SG has handed his keys over and left the building for the last time, then we will be happy to have that conversation with the club about reinstating sponsorship of one or more players and will try to get as many people on board with it as we did before, provided the club are keen to work with all supporter groups and bodies (Supporters Trust, TWS, CTO, Travel Club, and anyone else) so we can all pull in one direction for the good and benefit of ICT FC. #TogetherNESS #INverNESS

Ding, Dong.....if anyone can rustle up an AI generated graphic of our ex CEO in full lodge regalia under a scale replica of our battery farm I'd be forever in your debt. On a more serious note now that we have the desired regime change and the Kelty debacle has been put to bed how do we ensure that any season ticket monies are protected in the event of administration? Is there a way that we can ring fence these funds via the Supporters Trust?

Povlsen only acquired the NC500 brand in 2019. It was the North Highland Initiative (established by King Charles) that came up with and implemented the original idea. As I understand it Povlsen is trying to undo and lessen some of the negative impacts. Although that would seem like trying to put the Genie back in the bottle. A discussion for another topic.

Yes. Exactly. Astonishing. ICT has been on a precipice for a long time (as many years' annual accounts plainly show) ... long before Gardiner ever came to Inverness. Rightly or wrongly, he has become a paria targeted by the suffering multitudes, thirsty for blood and looking for a scapegoat. Look, I'm sure Gardiner has made mistakes but remember that the recent club sugar daddy fan and chair Morrison (while under the interrogation on the Wyness Shuffle podcast) remained adament that Gardiner brought valuable skills and knowledge to the table. With his boardroom position, Morrison had the inside take on what Gardiner has really been like and what he is capable of / responsible for. Generations of experienced, board members and directors have all been unable to financially make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Fanpower has very effectively got the reversal of Kelty and the chairman to fall on his sword. However, chaos probably now ensues. "Be careful what you wish for" is a phrase currently ringing in my ears. Several months from now, it'll be interesting to see, with hindsight, whether the knock-on effects of this week's "fanpower" will be looked on with regret/remorse or vindicated enthusiasm.

The captain saw the iceberg looming ahead in the distance, so plotted a course 136 miles south. However, this sparked a mutiny and he was made to walk the plank. The mutineers then set the ship back on course, so that they can see the iceberg close up.

The last line he states football clubs shouldn't be doing any daft stuff like battery farms. I seem to recall an open letter he wrote supporting the proposal . Strange.

If we win our first 8 games without a goalie, I'll put a pound on us romping the league

Unfortunately it seems more likely than ever before. But it’s what the fans want…

I can accept Ferguson if necessary but Gardiner and Kelty are non negotiable. Get Gardiner Gone

Both project failed miserably in terms of meeting their targets, but I’m not sure you are right that they were actually catastrophic financial failures. I know it’s not what anyone wants to hear, but these Gardiner projects seem to have made significant non-footballing contributions to ICT. RM stated last week that the club’s interest in the battery farm was recently sold for £250,000, and in the previous year or two there were statements that the club rented the stadium and provided other services to the concert company for sums that would surely have been well into 5 figures. So it seems to be the case that these crazy, failed schemes have actually generated more income than a year’s worth of season tickets.

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.

Call an EGM and appoint Kristine CEO, Chair of a one person board and first team manager?

The podcast was very good. The Chairman is in many respects sincere in supporting ICT FC as you would expect. However, he is absolutely bogged down with fingers in many pies. On the Club website they write ' ROSS MORRISON CHAIRMAN Ross has a background working in the financial sector prior to setting up a property development company. He has interests in the whisky industry as well as owning several public houses, offices, shops and residential properties. Ross has a very deep and longstanding devotion to Inverness Caley Thistle, through thick and thin, having supporting Inverness Thistle from 1974 with his allegiance shifting to ICTFC in 1994. Ross is passionate about his cars, plays five a side football and has a gym membership which he uses sometimes!' If you Google him you discover that he has multiple active Directorships. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/IzQsY6lLw0n4CPAvlJPtNe0iR80/appointments To me that explains why he has become dependent on a day to day Chief Executive. Am not sure he could operate without his right hand man.

A quick google search shows up a lot of possibilities locally, if we were, for example, a community club and not pissing off the community at every turn. This example seemed pretty decent... https://www.highlifehighland.com/blog/new-physio-clinic-opens-at-inverness-leisure/ "“We have a team of highly skilled practitioners with experience working within many sports from professional football for Inverness Caley Thistle Football Club and Celtic Football Club to Olympic skiers in the Austrian Alps. Our sports massage therapist, Josh Meekings is a former professional footballer and therefore knows the demands of sports people."