Bridge_Ender

I’d argue that’s more making the stadium asset work for the club rather than a sideshow? It would be different if the idea was proposing to operate our own restaurant, but a seeking a franchise is basically just leasing the space out and (hopefully) letting the ££ come in for something that’s just sitting there. As someone who left Inverness over 20 years ago, rarely attends home matches and doesn’t wear football kits, it’s pretty difficult to financially support the club. With a focus on football, two possible income generators could be: - 1/2 season vouchers (ie, buy a 10 game voucher book rather than a full season ticket to target out of town/offshore/shift workers) - Away season ticket (reflects the split in our support. Many fans only go predominantly to away games) Not new ideas as loads of clubs do it, but another couple thoughts are: - Club membership scheme aimed at the out of towners and those who can’t justify a season ticket but who want to contribute. Possibly something like £50 a season, essentially just to feel part of things. - Kids club. Similar idea to the club membership one, but with a couple parties with players attending, mascot opportunities, etc. Are free season tickets for u12/u16 still a thing? Incorporate within this if so?

Exactly this. Whatever happens over the next few weeks and months, I hope that fan engagement and experience is at the front and centre of the recovery. There are multiple examples of how to do it well among our contemporaries, and often it costs next to f**k all to implement. Pretty much none of which have been utilised at ICT over the years.

I suspect his main motivation would be the awareness that his football related career would effectively be over unless he could make things work at ICT. If he was questionable pre-ICT he’ll surely be absolutely toxic to any club now.

Brilliant news that the absolute nonsense of Seventy7 / Makwana has been kicked into touch. It’s mind boggling how it got to the stage it did. Also very positive that Gardiner has gone. Definitely a sense of ‘the grown ups have entered the room’ with this news. It doesn’t look like Savage/Orion will be taking control of the club. But they will be assisting in getting it on the right footing and getting new long term partners onboard. That seems to be the remit of the marketing agency mentioned. The green shoots of recovery are there. But there is a long way to go to get ICT back to a stable footing. It looks like the first steps have been taken though

He’s a busy guy…

Aye… Don’t let facts get in the way of a good gut feeling, eh? Not sure Ambramovich is the best example of a ‘not dodgy’ investor either… As much as I’d love a white knight to be riding to ICT’s rescue, absolutely nothing that Makwana has said, or his track record, suggests he is that guy. For what it’s worth, to my mind there are 3 possible scenarios playing out, with 2) being the most likely: 1) Makwana / Seventy7 (who are technically insolvent) have somehow managed to arrange a credit facility and will purchase 50.48% of the shares for a controlling stake. The security for this will be ICT assets, and the club will be saddled with significant repayments for the foreseeable. See Glazers/MUFC as a template. For this to succeed, a massive change in operating/business plan will be required. Not to mention the further significant investment to get a failing business to a self sustaining, and profitable, level. 2) As Makwana / Seventy7 are technically insolvent, no takeover will happen and the deal collapses in a few weeks/months. As per the reported 6 months he apparently spent courting Hayes & Yeading before disappearing… Admin inevitably follows as the deal collapses. 3) Makwana / Seventy7 is the front for some bigger investors. Potentially the reputed Jersey/offshore connection? In that scenario, I’d argue that secrecy is quite the red flag… It’s just so depressing watching this whole episode play out. ICT really have become a circus.

Up to £8400 now, which is really good news for Aaron and no less than he deserves. It’s simply shameful that he has been put in his position and I hope this shows him how much the ICT support, and wider football community, value his contribution.

It’s going to take a lot more than season ticket sales and a few shirts to plug the gap. Assuming ICT come through this, there needs to be a concerted effort to radically rethink how the club is financed. The existing business model does not sustain full time senior football in Inverness. To set up in the same way would be pointless.

If ICT go into admin, and Ross Morrison is still on the board (in whatever capacity), does that affect his status as a secured creditor? i.e. is he better placed to get his ££ back as a secured creditor than he would be as a director of a business in administration? During the podcast interview he said he wouldn’t leave the board but would happily resign as Chairman.

What an absolute shambles of a situation this is. We’re an absolute laughing stock and a complete embarrassment. How could this be released without it being absolutely watertight?

I’m absolutely not an expert… but from Companies House it looks like Morrison (and also Morrison and Gordon Munro on shares) is a secured creditor on the money he has lent to the club. Folks that know more about this stuff than me please correct if I’m wrong, but does this not mean that were ICT to go into admin, only Morrison (and the RBS) would be the ones getting their money back (or a % anyway) from the sale of any assets…? Something that no other Chairman seems to have felt the need to do? https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC149117/charges

Is there any chance that this could be ICT trying to play politics by trying to embarrass the Highland Council? The hope being that by arguing that it’s too difficult/expensive to compete being based in the Highlands that it leverages enough pressure through fan and media indignation and incredulity (tick…) that the Council will intervene and perhaps push through on the battery farm, or more? It’s a helluva Hail Mary to throw if so.

Thanks for providing such a solid and honest response, really appreciated. There’s clearly been a lot of hard work gone into the trust over the last couple of years to get it to this point and kudos to all involved for that.

Doubt that there are many, if any, football clubs that operate successfully purely on football activities. Be it retail, sponsorship, leasing, alternative investments or whatever. All are used to feed the football operation. In the absence of those, property makes sense. They talk elsewhere about Conferencing facilities. I’d imagine that there is plenty scope for these sort of activities (done properly) to potentially drive significant revenue.

I’m all for greater fan involvement and think it can only be a positive. Particularly for a club like ICT where engagement between the club and the support has typically been pretty poor. I’m also generally in support of the Supporters Trust fund plan (although you could have come up with a better name for it!), and applaud the efforts of the folks who have taken it on and turned things around, but I’m just feeling a bit unclear on how it’s going to work and what it’s objectives actually are. At the moment it reads to me that we’re being asked to sign up for cash donations (regular or one off) to go into a separate fund that at some indeterminate point in the future could be used for something that the supporters trust board of the time deem worthy? Be it shares, players, running costs, whatever? It just feels a bit vague, albeit I’m very open to being proved wrong. Given the club stance, for as long as I can remember, seems to be that they don’t recognise the Supporters Trust as representative of all fans due to low membership levels it would be helpful to understand what the board/CEO do consider an appropriate level if a seat on the board is the target. Is there a risk this could just become a sluice fund for offsetting running costs from mismanagement? Are there trigger points where if certain funding levels are achieved then doors start opening? Are the club engaged and supportive in this process, or just sitting back to see what happens? Perhaps the summary of the discussion will answer these points when posted. I suppose what I’m saying is that football is expensive enough already, and asking the same pool of supporters to stick another £20/30/50, or whatever, a month into another pot with with no firm target or objective feels like a challenging ask.

Caley v St Johnstone, 1992... Only 9 years old at the time but still one of my all time favourite football memories. Coming back to 2-2, sensational stuff. It was by far the biggest crowd I'd been in up to that point, and we were at Telford Street most weeks. It's a completely different football world now to then. More choice, more TV, more exposure, greater demand, and options, on the leisure ££. It's almost pointless to compare and we'll never know what Caley would have achieved attendance wise. What we do know is that average CT attendances early on were higher than the combined average Caley & Thistle attendances in the final seasons, and that we compare favourably as a % of population attending (something in the region of 4.5% is standard, if I remember right), so with a population of 46,870 in 2012 anything over 2,100 is a bonus, perhaps?

Ahhh, I didn't realise / wasn't aware they were one and the same. Cheers! Utterly shambolic from them. Good point re: kit sponsors ymip. Potentially a compensation claim or 2 being a lodged...

Is the problem not more Cabrini rather than JD though...? I'd have thought that JD are waiting on delivery from the manufacturer and as such it's the delay from Cabrini causing the problem? What ever the situation it's shambolic and clearly not remotely good enough from all involved. Pleased to hear the club appear to be taking a firm stance on this.

Great idea Scotty but sadly, due to a variety of long established reasons, unlikely to be something we ever see in Scotland. I know smaller clubs than us are supplied by Nike, Adidas, etc. and I believe the way that works is clubs basically pick an off the shelf design, in club colours, and badges/sponsorship are added. Could, potentially, leave us with the same basic design as a few other clubs but the supply chain is proven to be a lot slicker and organised than what we've experienced since, well, forever! Strips may even be available before the summer holidays! Not sure what the commercial deal would be compared to whats on offer from errea/carbrini, but I would suspect that a lower % of retained sales is better than no sales at all!

Thanks for the answer CaleyD, a good explanation of ST policy. Didn't appreciate that abuse of u12 tickets was such an issue and the free ST was in response. Also agree that you can't please everyone!

A completely unrelated and irrelevant example offered up to attack a different point to the one being made... What I was suggesting would be something akin to the socio membership that works so well for small clubs like Real Madrid, Barcelona and has been adapted by many English Premiership sides (albeit in a much watered down membership style format). You'll find no argument from me that football wages are obscene, but guess what? That isn't going to change until selling football on TV doesn't work for the media companies, and that isn't going to happen anytime soon. A player is worth what the market dictates he's worth, it's that simple, and no amount of bleating will change that. The bare facts are that if ICT want to continue to compete in the highest echelons of the Scottish leagues they require more finance and preferably in a self supporting way, i.e. not an insecure sugar daddy McGregor/Narden-esque arrangement. I look forward to a more relevant and constructive reply from yourself, including suggestions on how to address a funding shortfall. Developing youth to sell on is a long term, time intensive, high cost strategy which whilst highly commendable and certainly something we would all wish for is, IMO, not realistic to support the club. What was the first thing that happened after relegation last time? All the pro youth squad were released to cut costs, wasting years of finance, expertise, effort and time invested before it had time to bear fruit. I'd absolutely love to see another Christie come through, but the fact is he is the only youth player that I can think of that we've developed and sold in 20 years! In a perfect set up I'd truly love to see a strong community set up feeding into an elite youth program supported by qualified coaches and scouts developing players for the first team, but sadly this is Scottish football and it just ain't gonna happen.

Charles, more details about the Players Fund that Partick have recently launched can be found here: http://ptfc.co.uk/news/2015-2016/may_2016/partick_thistle_player_fund Essentially it is as you infer above but where I think ICT are missing a trick is the demographic of our support. Historically a large number of Invernessians leave the area for education or work, often never to return permanently. To my mind this leaves a substantial number of childhood fans with an affinity to the club who would like to continue to support the club but for whom a season ticket or regular match attendance is impractical. I wouldn't aim such a scheme at those who currently attend games and buy tickets, they are already doing their bit, but at those who don't attend but still support. Back of envelope maths suggests something in the region of 10,000 such fans (Scottish Cup Final attendance versus average league attendance). If even 5% could be attracted to put £10 a month in on direct debit that's £5,000 a month/£60,000 a year. A not insignificant sum generated requiring little more than a direct debit form and some organisation. Yes, player wages are obscene and completely out of step with the wider world but if we all want ICT to remain at the level we have been then that's the market we have to compete in. The market which football operates within is simply not going to change, so we have to adapt.

Free season tickets for u12's are a great idea, but clearly this doesn't meet the demands of fans like Cakeytiltheend. Not everyone can commit to a season ticket, either financially or just planning wise. Why not just extend it to u12's go free for all pre bought tickets, including match day sales? More chance of on the day/last minute decisions to go, parents taking a kids friend along as well, and so on.

I tend to agree with the argument that the club is punching above it's weight financially, but that doesn't necessarily answer the question where the Christie, Mckay, Scottish Cup money has all gone. These were substantial windfalls, and undoubtedly some of it was used to plug the funding gap, but there must be something left over...? Unless the strategy is very much to save it for a 'rainy day fund', which I'd be OK with personally if it allows the club to remain competitive and not require the windfalls year on year. What I wouldn't be OK with would be had it been taken out of club in the form of shareholder dividends and such like, although there is no suggestion that this has happened. Where I do worry about the future is that the brick and mortar assets have now all been sold. As such the club cannot incur debts year on year and must break even over a 3/5 year period to keep the bank manager happy. It's achievable when things are going well, but is it sustainable long term? How important are losses, like the Alloa one, when you consider the missed revenue opportunity of a quarter or semi final in a National Cup? That is 50% of our additional earning opportunities over for the season, and it's only August! How much are we relying on these windfalls? How large is the disparity between operational costs and budgeted income? There are now no fixed assets upon which borrowing can be secured, should it ever be required. I don't intend this to be a criticism of those behind the scenes at the club, who are undoubtedly doing their very best, but there does appear to be a lack of a real professional who can energise the operation and start tapping into other revenue streams. I've floated a couple ideas (10 game season tickets & a fans players fund) which have been knocked down on here with the 'tried it 10 years ago, didn't work then' reason. That may well be so, and I'm certainly not suggesting that either of these ideas would be major money spinners, but everything in life has moved on from 10 years ago, why not try it again? Is there anyone inside the club who's job it is to offer ideas, contacts, initiatives etc.? Do we have a marketing/promotional department, at any level, with the remit to drive sales? One small example - I bought tickets for a Scotland U21 game at St Mirren through their website years ago and almost every other week I have an email arrive promoting community/tickets/merchandise/etc. I have no interest in any of it but I am aware of it going on and it's always struck me how you hear nothing like this from ICT, so another opportunity for customer engagement is missed. Stick on the annual delay on replica kit (it's absolutely unforgivable to miss the school holiday market, every bloody time) and, to me, it starts to look a bit substandard... We do some things great, social media and audio video content being two that things spring to mind, so it's not all negative by any stretch. There is just a lot of room for improvement IMO.

History should never hold the club back and stop it moving forward, but the heritage of Caley & Thistle is an important part of the football story of Inverness and is certainly important enough to remain as the official club (trading!) name. Similarily, #ICTFC is just the result of changes socially and may well go out of fashion in a few years. The club shirt, letterheads, official communication, etc. should always bear the full club crest, IMO. It's the old first impressions argument. The badge looks great, is unique both in name (full) and design and as such is instantly recognisable. Social media, web content, etc. are all suitable for the ICTFC abbreviation and 'Pride of the Highlands' (However cringey, amateurish or generally rubbish it may be!). I don't see why it has to be either or, both have their place, but there should be a separation because, as said before, having 'ICTFC Pride of the Highlands' as the official crest is, to my mind, unprofessional and needlessly cheapens the overall identity of the club.