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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/02/2024 in all areas

  1. Still no accountability from our board though ... and more worryingly, still an undercurrent of thought that Makwana was a viable investor! As I make a personal comment on each of those quotes I highlighted below from the email from Panos this morning I am getting angrier and angrier at how much he is seeking to whitewash the board's role in this and their lack of governance. Whoever wrote this email for him is trying to spin a situation that has already spun out. Utter honesty and admission of failure would have been more appropriate in this instance. Really? You had no idea before? Thats an admission that you employed ZERO governance on the former CEO. Think you have this reversed. What about seller expectations? and buyer ability? If you seriously considered this then you are utterly incompetent. 100s of unqualified fans who spent 5 minutes or less googling raised enough red flags in just a few hours that would have kept Mao Tse-Tung happy for decades. Thats more googling than the prospective 'owner ' did by his own accounting. You then spent weeks wooing this serial fantasist and even now the courier articles from back then are cringeworthy at how gullible everyone seemed to be (except the fans, Alan Savage and Duncan Shearer). Did we investigate who gets commission on this deal? At full retail that's 2500 shirts per year for 3 years. Given that we won't pay full retail for these and there is an insane markup of football shirts, that could be as many as 5000 shirts per year or a combo of various merchandise. Seems insanely high and not a deal worked out based on the size of the club fanbase, nor the level of our merchandise sales and therefore quite possibly not to the benefit of the club. Something doesn't smell right in this deal. No shit Sherlock! A little bit f***ing late for all of that now. When asked 5 years ago, many of us presented ideas that were summarily ignored, or perhaps left in unread emails. Hundreds of supporters have reported they have sent emails to the club without response and NOW you ask us for ideas. Where were your statutory duties back in 2019 or 2021 or even 2023? What condescending sh1te. For the last 5 years the fans have been ignored and looked down upon by the very same people (Alan Savage aside) who are now coming at us with the begging bowl and hailing supporters as lifeblood. Which one is it? You can't have it both ways. The Supporters Trust have been derided publicly by the [former] CEO - who was allowed to do so by the board - and as the main, formally recognised, fan body, ignored by you all until we are now in the last chance saloon. This board really do beggar belief. Hypocrites. So -£5 million quid in 5 years and not one of you had a f****** clue that we were in deep financial doo-doo and/or had the balls to call either of our former CEOs who held those purse strings to account? Again, where were your statutory duties when this was occuring? Online broadcast and questions for the diaspora outside of Inverness? Lots of committed fans in Scotland, elsewhere in the UK, and internationally. Probably not then. That will be a f****** first. But given that it's unlikely you will make this an online meeting here's a few to be going on with ... I will likely think of many more, as will others on here. You say Alan Savage gave you clarity... WHY did you not have this before? Given your professional qualifications as a respected orthopaedic surgeon would you care to comment on the treatment dished out to our injured players, specifically the accusation made against you by Aaron Doran, and also in general to the club's treatment of other players who were - based on opinions expressed - 'cast aside' by the club over the last 5 years, in some cases while recovering from injuries. This may seem like old news but given the success of a crowdfunding request by one of those players cast aside (Sutherland), on behalf of another (Doran), and the sheer speed by which it reached and surpassed its crowdfunding goal, it may be pertinent to clear the air 'frankly' as you seek to use the same platform to crowdfund for the club. Please explain the internal governance methodology employed over the last 5 years that has seen the previous model of fiscal responsibility at the club (which also struggled to make ends meet each year) torn down and replaced with schemes that seem to have generated a shortfall of £5m in 5 years. Was the board aware of this and if they were, why was it allowed to get to this stage. If not aware, why not? Why did we rely on the assumption that one after another pie-in-the-sky schemes would come to fruition rather than work with what we had, taking small positive steps, and view these schemes as a windfall IF they happened. Please explain why you have failed to communicate with fans over the last 5 years. It is not a secret that this has been happening, so saying you did not know is utter BS, but yet the action of not responding, or not taking any action to instruct those who should be responding has been allowed to continue and is therefore condoned. Do you feel that you and the board of directors have behaved in a manner that is always for the good and benefit of the club? If not, why have you remained in place? That would be a question to each and every board member individually not collectively. Final Thoughts IF the club fails Panos, you and every single one of your board will forever be seen as 'Neros'. Fiddling while ICT burns. So let's see who prefers to be a Hero rather than a Zero.
    21 points
  2. The whole thing just comes across as the board taking no accountability whatsoever for the mess we are in. The former CEO will - quite rightly - be thrown under the bus for his actions, which we will likely only ever scratch the surface of, but each and every one of them is also culpable if they did not question him or raise objections when it was clear we were losing money hand over fist. And if it is all SG's fault, then what about all the stuff that happened under his predecessor's watch? I can personally attest to dealings with the former CEO before SG that were downright sleekit and left CTO thousands of pounds out of pocket. I will say I do not trust ANY of them right now and any respect I had for any of them is gone. Respect can be earned back, but trust ... thats harder.
    7 points
  3. It is a long letter from which much emerges. I'll pick up on 4 points just now. I'll apologise in advance for sounding so negative. One of the things mentioned which might help is to get the 7/8acres of land surrounding the ground re-conveyed to the Club. The Current leaseholder is ICT Properties Ltd and it will come as no surprise to anyone that the sole directors are Ross Morrison and David Cameron. Interestingly, the last financial statement of ICTP shows an unspecified debt of over £4.5m. I don't know if anyone could shed any light on what that might be? It mentions that former Directors' loans total £3.425m. That would suggest that none of them have yet taken the appropriate steps to write off their loans as it was previously suggested they would. If any of them have done the decent thing, then that should have been specifically noted so they they are not seen as quite so culpable as their colleagues in this shambles. Apparently only Alan Savage has dipped into his pocket. One assumes, therefore, that none of the current Board have dipped into their pockets to help address the mess they are responsible for. On a more general note I am really quite angry about the tone of the letter. It comes across as though the Board are and have been doing all in their power to get the club on a sounder financial footing. The truth is they share a significant level of corporate culpability for decisions made and not made over recent years. That being the case, it is very disappointing that there is not a hint of contrition or an apology for their part in all of this. Against this background, it is difficult to see why the fans should now be expected to dip to their pockets just to delay what is increasingly looking like inevitable administration.
    7 points
  4. I could email to the club, and I may do so, but also happy - as a member - for the Trust to collate a bunch of questions and ask these as a group. The board really do need to be held accountable, and as much as we all loath the former CEO and blame him for everything, the reality is that his predecessor was also terrible and the board themselves have not appeared to do much, if any due diligence when either was at the helm. The buck stops with them and ignorance to the day-to-day running of the club is no excuse or explanation. I did a quick read of P&B today for the first time in a long time and reading the ICT thread, one of the biggest things that is being mentioned time after time is the ludicrous kit deal ... a minimum spend of £125,000 per year, every year for 3 years is unheard of at this level and many on there are theorising some dodgy dealings or kickbacks or commissions. I have no idea if those comments have any merit or not, but surely a deal of this magnitude must have had to go through the board for approval. If they signed that then what f****** planet are they on? If they weren't aware of it, then why the hell not. In my day job, I work in software and vendor management and have negotiated and have frequently initiated and/or signed multi-year deals like this, primarily because it offers benefit to my company compared to a single year deal, which is perhaps why I think this deserves more scrutiny. In my case, before any signatures are in place, especially when it reaches 6 or 7 figures (or higher), then it ultimately goes to my CIO to make sure it passes the sniff test, and all is right. It is also an opportunity for me to explain the structure, the risk, the current situation, and the required get-out clauses for both sides that I must build-into any multi-year agreement. It is also an opportunity for other eyes to make sure I have not made any errors or off the scale assumptions. Thats how it should be.
    6 points
  5. Scotty, thank you! Reading the shareholder’s letter this morning I just didn’t know where to begin with a response. I just kept thinking ‘seriously?’ and WTF as I read through it. Absolutely spot on with voicing my thoughts and feelings far more capably than I ever could have done - cheers
    6 points
  6. That has to be the main question for the meeting on Monday. If £200K is raised by mid-month, then what next? £200K every month? Or what? And they have to be brutally honest about the chances of any major investments coming in. Note to Board: Assuming a second place finish in the league is not "brutally honest" - it's the kind of pie-in-the-sky thinking that got us into this mess in the first place.
    6 points
  7. Following today's letter to shareholders from the Interim Chairman, the Supporters Trust has issued this statement: https://www.ictsupporterstrust.org/post/the-threat-of-administration We have also seen the suggestion that the Trust compiles a list of questions to be put to the Board, and we are happy to do this. We are conscious that many questions will inevitably relate to how the club got into the current situation rather than to how we can get out of it and avoid going in to administration. As a result, it is our intention to submit "backward looking" questions to the SLO in advance of the meeting and endeavour to raise "forward looking" questions at the meeting itself. To aid us in compiling the list of questions, it will be helpful if they can all be sent to us by e-mail: [email protected].
    5 points
  8. Well said Scotty. With regards to the Supporters Trust, Thomas’s words sound to me more like setting up the Trust and the fans to blame if the fundraising falls short.
    5 points
  9. This is nuts. Surely there’s been gross dereliction of duty as directors for years? How could any of them have seen these losses as sustainable. How could there even have been such losses?! All that seems to have gone on are land deals between companies in which directors have an interest while the club went to pieces. Imagine a football club that relied on an ex-player to buy footballs for it?!
    4 points
  10. I struggle to comprehend how we're even spending that amount of money in the first place. How are we spending £1.4m more than we're bringing in, its incomprehensible for a business of our size. What is it going on?
    4 points
  11. The statement is a good one but this idea again shows the trust are doing a bad job of reading the room. Fans are not going to entertain the idea of putting financial support behind those who continue to shun accountability or refuse to explain how they failed to prevent us getting into this position and that involves a lot of backward looking. They need to be questioned thoroughly on that at the meeting if there's to be any chance of looking forward.
    3 points
  12. The 200k that it is said in the letter is needed in 14 days time or administration is inevitable, what will that be spent on? Wages, bills, what other costs? I have bought a season ticket, an away shirt and bought stuff at the kiosk. They now want me to pay the wages through crowd funding !!!!!!!!!! This is an absolute joke of a mess. Directors step up or GTF!!!!
    3 points
  13. Scotty - can't you email those questions to the club? Or would the Supporters' Trust compile a list of questions ahead of the meeting? If ever the Board needed to listen to the Trust, it's now. I fear that the meeting may descend into chaos, and that nothing will be achieved.
    3 points
  14. Crossposting this here from the Investment thread as this may be most appropriate place. Also adding the shareholder letter as an attachment that Charles was attempting in post 1. Still no accountability from our board though ... and more worryingly, still an undercurrent of thought that Makwana was a viable investor! As I make a personal comment on each of those quotes I highlighted below from the email from Panos this morning I am getting angrier and angrier at how much he is seeking to whitewash the board's role in this and their lack of governance. Whoever wrote this email for him is trying to spin a situation that has already spun out. Utter honesty and admission of failure would have been more appropriate in this instance. Really? You had no idea before? Thats an admission that you employed ZERO governance on the former CEO. Think you have this reversed. What about seller expectations? and buyer ability? If you seriously considered this then you are utterly incompetent. 100s of unqualified fans who spent 5 minutes or less googling raised enough red flags in just a few hours that would have kept Mao Tse-Tung happy for decades. Thats more googling than the prospective 'owner ' did by his own accounting. You then spent weeks wooing this serial fantasist and even now the courier articles from back then are cringeworthy at how gullible everyone seemed to be (except the fans, Alan Savage and Duncan Shearer). Did we investigate who gets commission on this deal? At full retail that's 2500 shirts per year for 3 years. Given that we won't pay full retail for these and there is an insane markup of football shirts, that could be as many as 5000 shirts per year or a combo of various merchandise. Seems insanely high and not a deal worked out based on the size of the club fanbase, nor the level of our merchandise sales and therefore quite possibly not to the benefit of the club. Something doesn't smell right in this deal. No shit Sherlock! A little bit f***ing late for all of that now. When asked 5 years ago, many of us presented ideas that were summarily ignored, or perhaps left in unread emails. Hundreds of supporters have reported they have sent emails to the club without response and NOW you ask us for ideas. Where were your statutory duties back in 2019 or 2021 or even 2023? What condescending sh1te. For the last 5 years the fans have been ignored and looked down upon by the very same people (Alan Savage aside) who are now coming at us with the begging bowl and hailing supporters as lifeblood. Which one is it? You can't have it both ways. The Supporters Trust have been derided publicly by the [former] CEO - who was allowed to do so by the board - and as the main, formally recognised, fan body, ignored by you all until we are now in the last chance saloon. This board really do beggar belief. Hypocrites. So -£5 million quid in 5 years and not one of you had a f****** clue that we were in deep financial doo-doo and/or had the balls to call either of our former CEOs who held those purse strings to account? Again, where were your statutory duties when this was occuring? Online broadcast and questions for the diaspora outside of Inverness? Lots of committed fans in Scotland, elsewhere in the UK, and internationally. Probably not then. That will be a f****** first. But given that it's unlikely you will make this an online meeting here's a few to be going on with ... I will likely think of many more, as will others on here. You say Alan Savage gave you clarity... WHY did you not have this before? Given your professional qualifications as a respected orthopaedic surgeon would you care to comment on the treatment dished out to our injured players, specifically the accusation made against you by Aaron Doran, and also in general to the club's treatment of other players who were - based on opinions expressed - 'cast aside' by the club over the last 5 years, in some cases while recovering from injuries. This may seem like old news but given the success of a crowdfunding request by one of those players cast aside (Sutherland), on behalf of another (Doran), and the sheer speed by which it reached and surpassed its crowdfunding goal, it may be pertinent to clear the air 'frankly' as you seek to use the same platform to crowdfund for the club. Please explain the internal governance methodology employed over the last 5 years that has seen the previous model of fiscal responsibility at the club (which also struggled to make ends meet each year) torn down and replaced with schemes that seem to have generated a shortfall of £5m in 5 years. Was the board aware of this and if they were, why was it allowed to get to this stage. If not aware, why not? Why did we rely on the assumption that one after another pie-in-the-sky schemes would come to fruition rather than work with what we had, taking small positive steps, and view these schemes as a windfall IF they happened. Please explain why you have failed to communicate with fans over the last 5 years. It is not a secret that this has been happening, so saying you did not know is utter BS, but yet the action of not responding, or not taking any action to instruct those who should be responding has been allowed to continue and is therefore condoned. Do you feel that you and the board of directors have behaved in a manner that is always for the good and benefit of the club? If not, why have you remained in place? That would be a question to each and every board member individually not collectively. Final Thoughts IF the club fails Panos, you and every single one of your board will forever be seen as 'Neros'. Fiddling while ICT burns. So let's see who prefers to be a Hero rather than a Zero. Shareholder Letter 1 October.pdf
    3 points
  15. The forensic audit has been done, and the results posted: https://ictfc.com/club-update-2/ it is a sobering read, and if you had any doubt of the dire situation we are in, then this will clarify that we are on the brink of administration. The lifelines are a crowdfunder for £200,00 by Oct 16th, two weeks away,and so far unidentified investment. There is a meeting on Monday 7th for all concerned to discuss the crisis. At least we now know the facts, which have been unclear and muddied for the last two years, and can hope to address them with some clarity. Thanks to Alan Savage for keeping us going in the interim and doing all this necessary work.
    3 points
  16. I doubt any group or individual would want to invest in us until there are assurances around our viability and clarity with our financial situation.
    3 points
  17. Whilst I agree that the Board has to account for their (in)actions - see umpteen of my past posts - Monday's meeting is not the time to do that. Start on that, and the meeting will get nowhere. The only topic for discussion must be how the club could be saved. Everything else is just noise. If a miracle happens, there will be time to ask other questions at a later date.
    2 points
  18. Even if somehow the £1.5m was secured from somewhere, . . . . 'second place finish in the league' ? - not a chance, with the current management incumbents!
    2 points
  19. Is there any indication of how much time the £200k buys the club? I suspect it's not long and rednblack may be right to think it's a monthly requirement. Feels scarily like the kind of gamble the previous chairman and ceo were taking by throwing money at things in the hope of rescue coming down the line. Sad reality is the club is unsustainable as is. Time to pull the plug and start fresh. £200k would go much further starting from zero than it will trying to fill a gaping black hole.
    2 points
  20. I think some of the earlier posts capture my own thoughts too. I agree with @STFU on the hope to come in and run things down to a more manageable level. Cutting our cloth to suit in other words. I also think he knew how much he was prepared to fund himself, but for sure is not prepared to finance golden handshake deals or paying off a former CEO. Yes, not going to pay anything until the picture becomes a little clearer. Would not be prudent. If things went south quickly and we didn't put the money in for one reason or another, then the people who donated it would need to have some say as to where we go from here ... refund or perhaps redirect to youth setup or women's team are just my initial thoughts. As of now however, its ring-fenced and targeted to be paid to ICT.
    1 point
  21. Yes. Because, despite the temptations, the meeting has to be "forward looking".
    1 point
  22. I think you both might be right. What we have seen playing out recently is Savage get a foot in the door thanks to the massive incompetence of the board previous chairman and CEO. He has tried to use this situation to persuade/force those owed money to write it off and walk away for the good of the club and to cough up even more cash on the way out so that he can run things until such time as financial contracts and commitments can be run down to a more manageable level. Given that the board appear to have been clueless even if he did have someone feeding him information before taking up his consultant position he would have had no idea just how bad the ongoing financial commitments were. Having been unable to convince all those owed money to write it off and walk away whilst also funding things further until it gets to the point where contracts and financial commitments can be run down to a manageable level he has resorted to the previous rumoured plan of administration and taking full control via that route. One thing that has not been made clear is whether or not the £350k provided by Savage is a true donation to the cause or if it is loans or share purchase.
    1 point
  23. I'd be happy to give money to restart the club after the restructuring, points deduction etc. Not so sure if it's to pay off debts that the Board bear a lot of responsibility for. Can we set up something so the administrators see there's a bank of money waiting to be invested but not wasted?
    1 point
  24. I think that may have been mentioned in past but I don't think that's his aim now? The worry with admin is the administrator could decide liquidation best option with no chance of saving club?
    1 point
  25. He is a business man first and foremost. He would have known some of the big issues from his previous association with the club and his association with two of the current directors. Perhaps the issues he now finds are bigger than he first thought, but it was widely reported before he took his consultancy role that he wouldn’t take the entire thing on with all of someone else debt.
    1 point
  26. I know we shouldn’t be at all surprised by the severity of our financial plight and the urgency of the situation, but I kinda hoped that Savage was our saviour, especially after all the good things he did in his first couple of weeks. Not criticising him at all, he’s done what he said he would do, ie carry out a thorough business review and keep us afloat financially during that process.
    1 point
  27. The players are protected under SFA / SPFL rules and must have their contracts paid / honoured. They do I believe have the option to leave their contracts if they wish to move elsewhere if the club enters admin. Players can’t be sold if they don’t want to move( i.e those settled here), so in that respect they are protected, unlike the staff employees who are not.
    1 point
  28. Are you committed to paying it, Scotty. Not sure if you have any options, but if so, I for one trust you to make the best decision you can with the information that you have.
    1 point
  29. I wouldn't be at all sure of that. But note that administation is not just a "reset". There is no guarantee that the club could continue as a going concern, even if it dropped down to League 2 or to the Highland League. Someone would then have, for example, the expense of maintaining the stadium, with only peanuts for income.
    1 point
  30. Panos is a knee surgeon who told Aaron Doran to run off an ACL injury. Panos now wants us to pay more of our money into what is pretty much a club taking its last few breaths. Any wonder we are past the point of no return with 'leaders' like that in charge. RIP ICT
    1 point
  31. Absolutely. They should also be making projections on the assumption we get relegated.
    1 point
  32. Every update just seems to be the same - we are making massive losses, it's unsustainable, we need more funding. What's the plan for getting out from under this? You can't do a monthly crowdfnder for £200,000.
    1 point
  33. It’s time to be realistic. The current club structure is not sustainable, throwing money at it to just keep afloat is going to achieve nothing. The club needs to reset and start again with a proper structure and strategy.
    1 point
  34. Looks like £200k will be a regular monthly requirement then?
    1 point
  35. Good piece of speciation STFU. Don’t think your too far of the mark!
    1 point
  36. Things are bad enough Charles without bringing Prince Andrew into the equation.
    1 point
  37. I should be down there with @Gringo as Bonnyrigg didn’t win, they lost.
    1 point
  38. Scott Gardiner - The Grifter's Grifter. I may well be wrong but I get the distinct impression Savage would rather we go into administration rather than pay this utter charlatan of a man. As such I think he takes us to the brink and then strong arms the hapless former directors into coughing up for the mess they allowed to transpire. Anyone giving the CEO of a struggling Championship club a 12 month notice period genuinely needs an intervention. The never ending omnishambles that just keeps on giving.
    1 point
  39. Perhaps admin was his plan all along. Buy it cheap without the debt, then run it as he sees fit with his board / people.
    0 points
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