Scotty

If we accept that referee wages are artificially low (not sure I do, but lets assume so for a second) and a big pay rise was needed to bring them even somewhat into line with other leagues, then I hope this ongoing discussion focuses on bringing their performances and level of accountability into line with those other leagues. A 39% wage rise should mean a huge improvement in the standard ......... but I won't hold my breath

not really averted, just caving into their demands of a 39% increase instead of the 4.74% initially offered. I guess it is better than the near 74% rise that the ?1000 demand would have been !!!

signed too.

Fairways is a well known one that has been around as a pre-match venue for a while .... so if pictures and a review are forthcoming we would probably be quite happy to add it.

As it was pointed out to us that some of the info in our Pub/Grub and Accomodations page was wrong, I have updated it a little. http://caleythistleonline.com/club-guide/pubgrub-guide However, this is the opportunity for others to perhaps recommend places we have not listed. Pubs: Caley Club: If anyone has a photo (which they have the right to use) of the interior/exterior that we can add to the page, please send or attach here. If anyone would like to update our review, please also send me a message. Innes Bar: I have a photo of the inside added, and have sent an email to someone asking for permission to use their exterior photo but if anyone has one of the exterior or wants to update the review, please let me know. Other Bars: If there are other bars where ICT fans congregate or who run busses to the stadium then we will be happy to feature them. Reviews and pictures required. Grub: If anyone wants to send us more info about decent eateries (or cashpoints/bookmakers or other 'service' info) near the ground, please feel free. I know that Woody's may be a candidate for inclusion, but are there others? Does the Wickes Burger Bar still exist? Accomodation: We have removed a couple of hotels from this page as we felt they were not really offering anything special for fans and were basically getting free advertising when really they should be paying for it. We are however happy to feature 'football-friendly' hotels, guest houses, or B&Bs if backed up by fan reviews.

This idea has some merit .... so long as there is monitoring of performance and more accountability as I mentioned in last post.

MLS has - I think - 4 full time referees and the danger seems to be that these referees feel the game becomes more about them than the players. I know there are some refs we could probably say that about already but when they are put on a par with the players, the egos do tend to come out even more !!! Canadians tend to be very polite and sporting but the full-time ref at Toronto FC V Dallas this past weekend had to be escorted from the field by Toronto police (and stayed in the stadium until 7:30pm, nearly 2 hours after the final whistle) after a string of ludicrous calls that culminated in two red cards for TFC players and 20,000 fans singing "**** you ref" in unison for the last 10 minutes !!! The first red was possibly justified (hard to tell - it was for an elbow at far end of pitch from where I was) but it was equally hard to tell for the ref who had to run 30 yds (from the left wing position where the ball actually was) to issue a straight red to Toronto's Amado Guevara and (with the score at 0-0) award a penalty against TFC. When the incident happened, you could see the linesman (who apparently had a good view) flagging and when the ref talked to him it was clear that he was indicating that any incident happened well outside the box. The ref over-ruled him and was heard to berate him and tell him that he was the full time official and the penalty and red card would stand !!! Needless to say the penalty was scored and just 5 minutes later another player was red carded for dissent about the incident and Dallas went on to score their second. This ref has a history with several teams and many fans around MLS despair when his name is mentioned because it seems that full time status has brought out the ego in him and he thinks he is infallible. If we are to have full time refs then there would have to be some form of monitoring and accountability to avoid numpties like the one I saw this weekend.

Interesting to note the apology to fans from the Burnley Chief Exec for turnstile problems at the weekend. http://www.burnleyfootballclub.premiumtv.c...1357929,00.html

If it was so straightforward, might it have been better man management, and more confidence building to have said that two weeks ago when the question was first asked.

I think referees should be fairly paid. However, unless we are going to go down the route of salaried full time referees who are accountable for their decisions, and whose performances are closely monitored, then a raise from ?575 to ?1000 for a top level match is ludicrous. I used to think full time referees might be a good thing - and it still may be depending on the actual ref - but after witnessing one of the most inept performances from a full time official that I have ever seen this past weekend at the Toronto FC V FC Dallas game I wonder. I do have some sympathy for refs in that it usually takes them quite some time to progress from their local association where they referee amateur or welfare league games for ?20 or ?30 a pop to running the line at non-league games for a little more, to reffing these games and then through the grades required to ref in the 3rd, 2nd, 1st and then the Premier and beyond. It does take dedication, it does take discipline and many may not make it, but you could say the same thing about players or anyone else in a job where they have to reach a certain level before promotion to the next one. That sympathy disappears when you hear of demands like this and the potential to hold the national sport and the fans of that sport to ransom.

The referees are asking for a 39% wage rise. That is unrealistic, especially when you consider the quality of work produced by most of them.

I totally agree with that comment, and if you speak with myself or CaleyD you will find you are preaching to the converted, but can you tell the club that as well Alex ........ How we came to split from the official site and the machinations of what went on during that time is a long and somewhat boring story best told after several beers. However, even though it does have a few twists and turns and the odd stab in the back from those you least expect, we have always been happy to help the club in whatever way we can if they need it. We have offered help and assistance from day 1, we had a temporary official site running on a custom template for them 72 hours after the 'split' (it took 6 months+ for PTV to be up and running despite using a standard template), and we have suggested collaborating on several joint official/fan-site joint ventures yet many at the stadium, or at least those "advising" them, have kyboshed it before it starts. We are not the ones thinking its <site> V <site>

Indeed it was Mee. For many years we tried to be everything to everyone and although that seemed to be fine for a while, in the end it just didnt work as the club got bigger and as the opinions got broader. We were either seen as censoring people (from the fan side) or for being too lenient (from certain club officials) A few people know where my breaking point came and courtesy of a few misdirected emails I know that the same incident was the club's breaking point in terms of letting an "outsider" run the site. Independence is a lot more cathartic and I think we have flourished when we have been in control of our own destiny

pot / kettle

Thank you for the nice comments folks. we appreciate it. No need to recap much as CaleyD has got it pretty spot on. I would however like to echo what he said with regards to Fiona. She basically IS the website, adding updates, stories etc and I am sure she must get frustrated when things cannot be published in a timely fashion for whatever reason. The problem doesn't lie there, its further up the food chain and in some cases outwith the club's control. Clubs can and will be held accountable to the SPL for official website content which is likely why Niculae stuff never got there until weeks after it had been discussed on here .... we can use "it is my understanding" or "we believe", or "it has been reported in ....." they cannot.

Can see it being less than well subscribed if it is on the 26th September -- due to a few ICT fans being at a competing event taking place at the stadium - isnt that right Jnr / CCC

Believe someone else got the contract but from what others say it sounds like they may concentrate more on the prawn sandwichers. ..... Roscoe - thanks for pointing out info we need to amend, that one slipped by. If anyone notices any other obvious errors, please let us know.

I could have deleted that last post and claimed 400 for myself .... but as this saga is not yet over, I will content myself on trying to be #500 !!

All that has been sorted is the fact that he is a Dinamo player. As I said yesterday .... It is my understanding that this is also how UEFA viewed it. As for the player' cut of the wages --- ICT should keep that money in the bank as that part of the story is not over.

Seems that the heart of the dispute lies in an alleged conversation between Marius and the Club over his % of the fee and the rest is just smoke and mirrors. It has been reported that only three people were at this meeting so only three people can actually tell us what was said .... two of them have either spoken out themselves or through representatives and each story is different !!!! What we do know is that Dinamo offered ICT 500,000 Euros and the club accepted. Dinamo then transferred 95% of the money to ICT (the other 5% is a legitimate levy detailed in UEFA/FIFA rules). As far as Dinamo are concerned, they have paid the money and concluded the deal. Dinamo could not have done any of this unless ICT had supplied them with their bank details for the transfer and ICT should not have supplied those details unless they were ready and prepared to conclude the deal. It may be ICT naivety, but as far as I am concerned, the action of providing your bank details to another company is a tacit "acceptance" of your deal/contract/agreement with them. I also cannot get my head around what we are saying now which seems to contradict all three points contained in the statement issued by the club on the 26th July ..... Point 1: A fee has been agreed and we are just sorting out the paperwork. Point 2: It is a straight deal although Marius is entitled to a percentage of it. Point 3: It represents a good deal for the club and the player.

This whole thing is very confusing Dinamo signed him on a 4 year deal and showed paperwork that seemed to support that including letters from ICT and copies of a wire transfer that may or may not have had a UK bank stamp on them. The fee looked to be 500,000 Euros and there was a holdback of 5% which we assume was the FIFA fee to be distributed to former clubs that CaleyD discovered on their site. ICT for their part have said contradicting things ..... 26/07/08: ?A fee has been agreed and we are just sorting out the paperwork. It is a straight deal although Marius is entitled to a percentage of it. It represents a good deal for the club and the player." 28/07/08: "Inverness have warned that Marius Niculae's transfer to Dinamo Bucharest will only be completed if the player waives his right to a cut of the fee. The Romanians have sent 475,000 euros to Inverness, but the club will not sanction the move until Niculae waives his right to a cut of the fee." 29/07/08: ?A fee has been agreed on the basis of certain agreements with both Marius Niculae and Dinamo Bucharest. The money is not in the bank yet and these things do not happen overnight." 31/07/08: MFR reports that ICT sent Dinamo a fax last night saying they have till 3pm today for Marius to agree to waive his fee or they will be sending the cash back. and today .... the news gets worse Dinamo Bucharest have reported Inverness Caledonian Thistle to UEFA for not releasing Marius Niculae after the striker agreed a four-year contract with the Romanian club. Dinamo Bucharest offered ?400,000 to Inverness to sign the Romanian internationalist but Inverness are refusing to sign his release until they have received the transfer fee from Bucharest. One thing that possibly has a ring of truth to it actually comes from the Highland News ..... "The Highlanders seemed certain to accept a ?500,000 offer from German club Kaiserslautern. but Niculae made it clear in a meeting with Caley Thistle chairman George Fraser and director of football Graeme Bennett that he wanted to go back to Dinamo. Caley Thistle were concerned by the offer made by the Romanian club believed to be ?380,000 and claim Niculae offered to give up his personal fee of around ?50,000 to clinch his dream move home." If that is true then the player should by rights do that ... but as has been said throughout this thread ... if its not on paper then its not worth that piece of paper its not written on !!!!

I have heard the name before ..... cant remember if it was to do with Rankin or someone else - or whether he was the one who came on here ranting once - but I know he has represented the likes of Alex Burns, Kirk Broadfoot, and it would seem, John Carew. However, it is interesting to note that he is not registered as a football agent in Scotland according to both the SFA and FIFA websites. He does however appear to be employed by Graeme Rankin sports management and Graeme Rankin IS a licensed agent. Sources: http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/scottish_footb...?curpageid=1219 http://www.fifa.com/aboutfifa/federation/a...iation=sco.html

Rooney and Niculae :004: (the club did say they regarded him as still an ICT player)

There will be more twists and turns yet ...... :004:

Its kind of a double edged sword for me Birdog. When anything happens, I still tend to get information sent to me from various sources and although that sometimes means I get a well rounded picture of events, just as often, I (or "we" as a website) only get one side of the story that someone wants to punt and when the other side comes out, the original story does not look so controversial. When I was over in April, I spoke to a fairly well connected friend of mine about other stories such as Rankin, Brewster and even Niculae and though I chose not to make most of the results of those discussions public, I feel that in the case of Rankin and Brew, I got a different viewpoint and one that was very close to the action as it were. Dennis Wyness is another case in point. I love the guy as a player, he is and always will be an ICT legend, and he is basically a very nice human being and I just about blew a gasket when I heard of the contract offer being withdrawn. I will say that I feel the club got it wrong immediately after that came out by allowing various stories to be circulated - and these werent rumours, these were different official stories issued over the course of a couple of weeks. As I said on another thread, the final story from ICT actually rang a little more true - that his agent had tried to ask for more money right at the death - and that made it more understandable. If the club had said that this was the reason on the day the offer was withdrawn, it would not have been them who looked bad. For me, it all goes back to PR. The club have none. Sure, they have someone who will prepare and issue statements for them when something goes pear-shaped but that is not good enough because its reactive rather than proactive. Like most other clubs in the SPL, they need a dedicated press officer who is well versed in the ways of the media (both traditional and "new media") and who will issue carefully prepared statements as well as reaching out to newspapers, websites or other outlets where the club can be portrayed in a positive light. It should not matter if a site is official or unofficial, whether it gets 1000 hits a year or 10000 a day ... if they can print something positive - which it would be as it would be in the club's own words - then they should receive that info. For the avoidance of all doubt, I once again guarantee that we will print ICT related press releases in full and unedited when we receive them and allow fans to make up their own minds. We have carried releases from the club, from Orion, from David Sutherland and even from officials in the pre-Sutherland days. When this site was official, it started off very well, I liaised with the likes of Ken Thomson and then with Kenny Cameron and there was a two way flow of information. The club were happy because things were positive, the fans were happy and positive because they felt listened to, and the upshot was that supporting both the team and the officials off the park was fun. As time wore on, and I can pinpoint the very day the deterioration started (the day that Kenny stepped down and Nigel whatshisname took his place and changes were made in the front office) getting anything other than commercial sales pitches was like pulling teeth. Getting proper information and news often took dozens of phonecalls because there was no longer any liaison. I lost count of the number of times press releases appeared in the Courier, Highland News, BBC, P&J or suchlike yet I had not been included in the mailing. Even when club officials told the person sending these releases that I had to be included, I still got nothing. Not sure if it was me, or because the person issuing them didnt regard "new media" as a legitimate journalistic avenue, but at the end of the day, the person issuing official press releases was not issuing them to the official site and that sums up the approach in a nutshell. There seems to be a culture of secrecy surrounding the club these days which is far removed from what it was like just a few short years ago. Its almost as if they are scared to let anyone who is not an "insider" know anything of any relevance and that any story that comes out must be spun which is a problem when you dont have anyone capable of doing that and when the secret bunker has more holes than a colander. Whatever happened to the truth ! Be honest, be open, if you **** up then say 'oops, i ****ed up' and move on. A culture of collaboration with the fans is far more preferable to everyone than the culture of confrontation. Having said all that, I actually believe that most of the people at the club are capable of doing their jobs to a reasonable level (or an acceptable level if you will) but are getting caught up in their own reactive policies. We seldom hear anything from the club unless it is in reaction to a negative story ... why not change that policy to one that is more pro-active and actually highlight what is good at the club, what is positive at the club. Talk to the fans, re-establish that collaborative feel. dont be scared to issue a positive press release in advance of something, dont be scared to clarify the club position when a one-sided rumour comes out ... in short, dont be scared to talk to all who will listen instead of just reacting days or weeks after the fact when the media and fans have had time to snowball a nothing story into the next controversy in Scottish football. As I know this thread is being read by club officials, I will publicly make the same offer that I have made to the club privately over the last few years. You trusted me to run your official website for many years. For the most part, you did not interfere in the day to day running of it or dictate that this subject or that subject was taboo on the message boards. It was a time of good collaboration between club and fans. (Almost) Everyone on here is an ICT fan and deep down they all want to be positive about the club, the staff, the officials, the management and the players ... work with us to achieve that. We are not a rival to the official site, we would not have supplied you with a temporary official site and shop (at our cost) during the several months between the end of our official status and the launch of the PTV site if we were. We are not in competition with the official site - we told you we would not try to do anything that would affect your commercial offerings on the official site (text messages, mobile downloads, club shop etc). We feel that both sites can complement each other which is why we advertise yours prominently on our front page (and will do so for anyone else who is associated closely with the club). We can offer some things that you cant (especially forums which can be fraught with hassles on an official site). So work with us to make the fans feel wanted, work with us in making sure press releases are there for the fans so that speculation can be minimised, work with us so that many of the negative perceptions of the club (whether right or wrong) can be addressed. We want to do that, and I have told you that on numerous occasions .... but we cannot achieve it unless YOU want to do it too. The ball is in your court.