Scotty

They likely need to be circumspect in how they word things, whereas the Courier is merely quoting what was said. AS doesn't care if he upsets our former CEO, in fact, I think he might even relish butting heads with him. I would imagine he has found plenty of ammunition in his forensic audit which he may think he could use that to negate, nullify or reduce the £70K claim. He didn't say he would pay it ... he said he would 'deal with it'.

Indeed. Savage is blunt and straight talking which is refreshing after 7 years of being treated like mushrooms (or worse). I am sure he too has heard all the rumours doing the rounds about various things and will seek out the details of any that hold water, exposing any shady deals that may exist or have existed in the process.

Thats not a statement, its a text message or Twitter post Like the content though

If ever there were any doubt about our former CEO ....

A few choice comments in that article: https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/watch-alan-savage-demands-past-inverness-caley-thistle-dire-359681/

The club can't sell it, it's not theirs to sell. We initiated a 99-year lease of the land when we built the stadium so likely 69-70 years left on the lease, but ultimately it is owned by the council who have rules and regulations about what can and cannot happen with it. I don't know the ins and outs, or the law, but I assume the lease could be transferred to someone else and this is what has been done to secure the loans given to the club by the directors who now "own" the lease. This is similar to what David Sutherland did. He (or Tulloch) built and "owned" the stands that were sitting on the leased land but gifted them back to the club later. I suspect that Tulloch had them on their balance sheet as fixed assets for a period of time and depreciated a percentage each year until they were basically worth nothing to them on paper. Hopefully the leaseholders can be persuaded to do something similar or take a reduced fee if they insist on getting some of their money back. One thing for sure, AS is doing something that should have been done years ago, and personally I like him telling it like it is, good or bad, and holding people accountable regardless of whether those people might get pissed off and sue him as he mentioned when talking about our former CEO.

That is where the rot started ... in 2017 not 2019. It just gained pace in 2019.

As concerning as the article is, it is refreshing that AS is not sugar coating it, as well as calling out those he deems responsible (or should have been) during the tenure of our former CEO. Thank You. Talking of crowdfunding... just a reminder that our player sponsorship initiative is still open. We have secured enough to sponsor one player's main shirt and would like to get to a second (and more) if possible.

All sounds very sensible. Alan Salvage™ still a breath of fresh air. The comment that "he would take Caley Thistle forward “on a realistic basis”, as a Championship level operation with aspirations to return to the Premiership." is EXACTLY what it should be. We can have aspirations to return to the Premiership, but first we should be a fiscally responsible championship club. If we reach the Premiership as we did before, then great, otherwise I will take boring fiscal responsibility over the cluster**** of emotions we have endured over the last few years.

Scotty: Hamilton @ 2.20 CDN Girl: Livi @ 1.75 SOS: Dumbarton @ 2.15

Scotty: HT: 0-0 FT: 0-1 1st Scorer ICT: Mckay 1st Scorer Opp: Cunningham Crowd: 945 CDN Girl HT: 0-1 FT: 1-2 1st Scorer ICT: Mackinnon 1st Scorer Opp: Williamson Crowd: 812 SOS HT: 1-1 FT: 1-3 1st Scorer ICT: Brooks 1st Scorer Opp: Allan Crowd: 1001

I have cleaned up the thread a bit and removed the discussion stuff as noted. A few updates/comments below. The poll is closed now and the names are edited into the main article at the top. I have updated payments to those received by 2pm on Friday 23rd August 2024. I will update daily, or maybe more than once per day if time allows. If you made a transaction and dont see it, let me know. The direct URL for the sponsorship can be found here or you can click "STORE" in the menu up top and it will take you to the shop page to purchase this membership : If you encounter issues, please check that you have actually checked out. You can see your pending transactions and invoices as well as completed purchases on your shop profile. https://caleythistleonline.com/clients/purchases/ https://caleythistleonline.com/clients/orders/

I want DF to succeed as it means ICT will succeed and that's the ultimate aim here. Looking at the highlights from last week there was some good play on display, but I cant speak to any bad play as it obviously didn't make the highlight reel. I would love ICT to get back to the stage we were at when 'Off the Ball' described the ICT job as being safer than any in Scotland with you being more likely to see Nessie than our manager sacked. We have binned a few since then unfortunately so its no longer true.

I gave him a little longer, but it was still in 2019 so not long after he started. The club asked the fans for fundraising ideas or leads to people interested in investing. I made a speculative cast over this side of the pond and actually got a bite I didn't expect. I lined up things, got the contact info together, provided names and phone numbers to the chairman who said he would pass this to the CEO, and stepped back to let the business folks on either side do their thing. After COVID it emerged that no-one had contacted the executive on this side of the pond even for a simple conversation. It may have come to nothing, after that conversation, or it could have been the beginning of a beautiful relationship, but we will never know as it never took place. Why bother asking for ideas and leads if you are not going to follow up on them. I actually spoke to the executive after COVID and he expressed surprise at not getting a phone call. That was one of my first red flags. Another was comments reaching me about his management "style" from various people. These were both fans and (former) staff members. That kind of style is never effective in any business and more importantly not part of the ICT ethos. Absolutely. Some of the board members may think things will smooth over, and perhaps they will as ICT fans are, for the most part, pretty docile and understanding... BUT, they let this guy run the club, largely unchecked for 5 years and that demands accountability. Clearly no-one looked deeply into the books as AS discovered all sorts of issues within 24 hours, or if they did they chose to let it slide which is incompetence of the highest order, or even bordering on criminal. There is also the unforgiveable nature of how club legends have been treated over the last few years, not just this summer and that is not (entirely) down to the former CEO. You can look at Shane Sutherland as a pre-cursor to the same treatment handed out to Aaron. You read Aaron's own comments about a man who is reputedly a renowned surgeon, you look at the players who should have had testimonials and have not, you look at the fact that after relegation in May not one of these people took the bull by the horns and actually talked to players about their futures. FFS we have a club that got relegated and facing financial turmoil and you cant have the decency to discuss that with loyal employees? We can lay the blame for part of this at Duncan Ferguson who should not have f***ed off on holidays leaving players standing on the side saying "WTF?" but the board are also culpable in a large way. They are happy to receive the plaudits when things go right and sitting in the posh chairs at Hampden, equally they should be strong enough to take fierce criticism over this cluster*** It is their job to block this if they see red flags, not to embrace it and then try to justify it over a period of weeks where media and fans perform the due diligence and find out in 5 minutes why this is the worst idea in the world. Because there has been zero governance over the last 5 years (in fact, since around 2017).

My son's away kit for his team is Black and Gold. It works as a good combination. Will be interesting to see ....

As we posted on our twitter account - a breath of fresh air! I am sure there will be stuff we disagree with him on as time goes on, but no-one can say he is just talking the talk, he is shooting from the hip, regardless if it offends our former CEO or the previous would-be 'owner' and putting some of his own money in. Thank You Alan Salvage™ (misspelling intended)

A couple of key comments in that article for me .... That was the basis of the Canadian interest I presented to the chairman back in 2019. They did not want to buy the club, but wanted to assist in the youth setup, possibly lend players to the club to develop them for their home club, or for a possible sell-on in Europe. They would also use their extensive media and entertainment experience in North America to help them with commercial advice and/or ideas. ICT would be one of a number of clubs they intended to work with in various continents with the aim being that they as the parent club would benefit from all of the relationships in some way. ICT did not respond to the person, then COVID happened so it may not have come to fruition anyway, and the opportunity (as well as that person) have moved on now so that ship has well and truly sailed. However, this sounds similar, and if that's the case here, and the interested party wants a football relationship that can be symbiotic in some fashion and bring something to the table for everyone then this could indeed be great news. It's definitely better than an out and out takeover by an equity firm that's for sure. This speaks volumes. We know he has already stuck £200K in last week to keep the lights on, but pumping more money in seems to suggest some level of confidence under all the rocks he has overturned during his audit.

He's looking down and pulling the strings from above

I agree. Thats why I said I am willing to put trust in him that he knows the potential investors better than we do and will do due diligence.

I'd buy him a pint for sure, but I am holding off on the statue for now. It is refreshing to hear so much open-ness from the club, it is great that the staff can finally breathe again and do their jobs, and who knows, perhaps some of those 7000 emails will now get answered, but there is a long road to climb. He will no doubt have to make some decisions we don't like, but I get the feeling that he will explain why those decisions need to be taken, which makes things easier. He has already rallied round creditors, paid some of our outstanding bills, and pretty much started the process of rebuilding trust in the club, and, as you say, to have done all this in a week is quite remarkable. If he can turn things around, get round the table with our existing major stakeholders, and also do actual due diligence on potential major or majority investors to make sure that their intentions and plans pass the sniff test, then it may be time to figure out who the best bronze worker in Inverness. It would have to be a group statue though as HMS Sneck has had many influential captains over the years... Jock McDonald steered at the start, Dougie McGilvray then set us on the road to the SPFL, David Sutherland kept us alive when we hit financial issues in 2000, and now AS is steering us through a dangerous and rocky coastline and deserves his place in that list. Plenty of others who also helped along the way in different and sometimes unsung ways. Maybe we end up with too many individuals to pay credit to so perhaps its easier to just put stickers of certain individuals who didn't live up to the hype in the urinals? That would also appeal to IHE as we recall the red/black painted urinals at Telford St back in 1994 ....

Yep, that's the bit that doesn't add up for me. That makes more sense, but if I am to be honest, whenever I hear the term "equity", "capital" or "venture" in a company name or description I worry. Experience in the engineering software industry has taught me that in almost all cases, an equity company taking over the parent company of a popular product has led to its demise, either directly because they liquidate the company immediately, or because the company increase costs to customers exponentially, get what they can while shedding customers left and right, then get out as the company dies a slow death. I have to look at it with cynical specs on and ask "What's in it for the buyer?" In ICT stakes, realistically it can only be one thing, the land. Given the effort that AS has put into the club in less than a week, and the fact that he is locally based, is a former chairman, and seems to be pretty transparent so far, then I am willing to trust that he knows far more about any potential bidders/owners than we do and is willing to ask the alternate question of "What's in it for ICT in the long term?" If we can get something that smells right and perhaps ticks boxes for both buyer and club, then great. Otherwise, we move on and keep looking.

Thats the question I have asked myself many times. I have yet to figure out a conclusion that makes sense. On the one hand you might buy into some of the schemes if 'sold' to you in a persuasive manner that makes you think the club you support will benefit financially... but on the other hand, you have to be blind - or located hundreds of miles away with your eye off the ball - to miss the signs that your chosen leader is alienating absolutely everybody from every category inside and outside of football for multiple years.

Doing a bit of googling and the best I can come up with is the current (actual billionaire) Nottm Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis. couple of links below but basically wanting to buy AC Monza which is still listed online as belonging to the Berlusconi family but now that Silvio has died, they want rid. However that doesn’t quite match what Savage has said as he already owns clubs in England, Portugal and Greece https://www.tribalfootball.com/article/soccer-serie-a-forest-owner-and-billionaire-marinakis-backed-to-takeover-new-club-in-italy-cf256eed-9f29-4091-b43f-10f6a7497eb1 https://www.nottinghampost.com/sport/football/football-news/nottingham-forest-owner-evangelos-marinakis-9462452.amp https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelos_Marinakis

Thats the unread ones, what about the 'read but ignored' ones!

According to the clip above, he sat on 7000 unread emails! what a breath of fresh air Alan Savage is right now.