Scotty

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.

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.

Ross Morrison was a fan before he was chairman and when we were discussing the potential involvement of a third-party, he told me he would sell his stake for peanuts if the right offer came in for the club. This was with his fan hat on rather than chairman's hat, so I believe him. He truly wanted/wants what's best for the club. Hopefully, he has written a portion off and (quite rightly) taken some in equity. History wont be overly kind to him as he will forever be mentioned in the same breath as our former CEO, but the reality - IMHO - is we would have gone under quite some time ago if he did not do his own version of an Uncle Roy impersonation and throw money at the club. Shame that the person he threw it at did not seem to use it well. The reality is that any of our creditors could have made life difficult and trigger an "insolvency event" so with Alan Savage now gaining broad agreement with them, then hopefully we can move forward cautiously. I think we are in good hands now, and engagement seems to be key. We are still deep in the forest and far from getting out of the woods but at least Scout Leader Savage seems to have the compass!

the devil will be in the details, and we are yet to see how this plays out with those who agreed to convert debt to equity, (for example, does Ross Morrison now become our biggest shareholder with 2.1m shares?) but on the face of it good news and Mr Savage is to be applauded. "On a hugely significant day for the troubled 30-year-old outfit, Savage revealed that Sir Alex Ferguson was among those offering to help, having got in touch to urge Caley Thistle to stick by manager Duncan Ferguson." If he is encouraging us to stick by DF then that's likely not helping unless he is going to give him a management masterclass, but if he is offering to use his contacts and knowledge to help us out that would be massive!

That always seems to be the way with youngsters more recently unfortunately. For every Ryan Christie, there are 100 Machados who don't quite make it for one reason or another either as academy graduates or as youngsters coming into the team. its not only a Scottish thing either. We see it over here all the time. Toronto FC has what's recognised as one of the best academies in MLS in terms of resources, funding and facilities and within a few years of formation in 2007 started churning out some really good prospects that looked exciting, but a stint in the first team seems to burn them out and they either have to move to restart a career or they just fade away. Just last week, we traded one young prospect (Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty) to Montreal for around US$1m which on the face of it sounds good, but as a prospect breaking into the team at 16, just a few years ago it was expected he would be the next Alphonso Davies and go to Europe for somewhere in the $10-$20m range around now. At least JMR still has a shot, but others take a similar route to Machado, they drop down to the 2nd team at their club, then perhaps to the Canadian Premier League, and maybe either USL or League One which are the US/Canada tiers below that.

Hopefully reality will set in for Dunc as well ... He was a battler as a player now it is time to be the same as a manager (just in a less physical way). You are getting no money, Charlie already told you that, no pie-in-the-sky schemes to bring fans to the stadium on a monorail instead of a bus, no phygital new owners in the foreseeable future, and nothing but scrutiny, penny pinching, and trying to get the best out of your young (and capable) players. Players that need to be nurtured, coached, and supported by you, and by us, even when things don't go right. Big Dunc's new era can start this week ... if he wants to, and if he can swallow his pride and realise he has to get on with it with the lads he has, and with the realisation that he has to use tactics and style of play they can handle. If he can make that change, while everything else at the club is also changing, then perhaps a line can be drawn in the sand where we all move forwards, onwards and upwards for ICTFC, all pulling in the right direction. Or it can all go to shit, and we can be subject to the same dross as before where ultimately Big Dunc will lose all credibility and future career as a manager...

Think this will be deserving of its own thread as details emerge of the sheer state of our finances ... but let me start controversially by saying THANK YOU to Ketan Makwana ! The utter nonsense of your 'takeover' bid, the corporate phygital gobbledygook coming out of your mouth or your linked in page, and your history at companies house woke up some of our giants of the past in Messrs. McGilvray, Sutherland and Savage. You were the straw that broke the camel's back, the final grand scheme that saw all of our CEO's cards collapse, that one domino that started the progression that will surely see more dominoes fall. I want you nowhere near our club, but you can take heart that even without buying the club with imaginary money, you may well have played a part in saving it. Clearly the reality of our situation is far worse than even the most cynical fan expected now that we have had some straight talking from Alan Savage and it all started with the idea that 77Ventures were random new owners overnight just a few weeks ago. But onto the main focus of this thread - the money, or more specifically the lack of it or of any oversight on that front. AS went in just 3 days ago and in that time he has discovered that we are not £300K adrift, that quickly ballooned to £450K then £700K and now closer to £900K. We don't have new strips FOR THE TEAM let alone the fans, because we have not paid the bills, and we apparently have a pre-order for £120K of strips sitting with Puma as part of that £900K. Given that the average cost of a strip is around £50 retail that's 2400 strips, but profits on these are decent so do we really have upwards of 3-4000 new strips waiting to be sold once we pay for them wholesale first? Not having strips for the start of the season is right up there with not having seats for the Tynecastle stands and having twice as many as we get at the stadium on a good crowd day, sitting in a container somewhere is as ludicrous as it sounds. I am sure AS will discover all sorts of 'anomalies', unexplained or lets say 'less than optimal' spending as he goes through the accounts with a fine-tooth comb, but my ire on that one is directed back at the board. How in f*** was there no oversight on this. SG did what SG was there to do. To operate as the CEO of ICTFC. The fact he seemingly did that without a shred of governance is not his fault. His performance and ability to do it correctly and economically should have been something benchmarked on a regular basis by the board. Did he have no performance reviews since 2019? If not, why not? Thats not a failing of SG, that's a failing of the board. Red flags have been around for a while. I recall the comment about Ryan Christie buying footballs for the youth team and I think that's what Charlie is referring to in today's article in the Courier which is well worth a read. The last three days with Alan Savage and now acting CEO Charlie Christie have seen more public communication from the club in 3 days than we have experienced in the last 5 years since the former CEO was put in post. https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/sport/this-club-for-far-too-long-has-been-losing-too-much-money-358498/ A few great bullets raised by Charlie: He is confident that working alongside Savage, it will lead to the club having a brighter future. The staff get frustrated too and a lot of that has been from resources. He, as academy manager, has had to do without things that were needed. The mood at the club has been great since Alan came in. Some of the staff don’t know him. He is fair, but demanding - and very professional.. He will want a paper trail for everything, as there should be. He will want more corporate governance in his time at the club and I don’t think that's much to ask. It is good for any business to have that. That’s what he’ll bring. We’re all delighted because we feel it is a step in the right direction. Watching the ill-feeling towards individuals at the end of last season, it is not good for Caley Thistle. It is something I’ve never seen. Fans have a go at managers, myself included, after poor performances. That goes with the territory. But not what we witnessed last year at times. Hopefully that’s dead in the water now and we can move on. I like the comments I have heard that some creditors are already paid, and the things Charlie mentions in that article. I especially like the comment that the mood at the club has improved. there are many hard-working and crucial folks down there doing thankless tasks who do not need to be micro managed and for them to finally be able to exhale and maybe show what they are capable of is a relief. We do have to get back to basics, we do have to stop all the pie-in-the-sky bullshit and the loss of money hand-over-fist. We do have to put football first and try to get out of this league and back up to the Championship and hopefully over time, the Premiership. One step at a time, one obstacle at a time, and all in a sustainable or responsible manner. With Charlie and Alan Savage at the helm now, I think this is a good start to the process but let's not stop looking inwards. The CEO was allowed to do what he did for many years, and those who allowed that, or didn't bother to look at what he was doing also need to take accountability for that.

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