Scotty

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.

We should be looking to see if there is any way we can match these teams for all our players as we should be competing with them in the same range of available players ..... that, to me, would be far more preferable than splashing any cash we might receive from the Niculae transfer. Having said that - I believe ICT have always had better win bonuses than some of the teams mentioned so if the team does well - and therefore earns more place money, the players get more so it may average out.

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.

Just like the Scottish Parliment Building was estimated to cost ?40M and we all know what happened there :017: My thoughts precisely. However, another sure thing is that the longer it is delayed, the higher the eventual cost will be !!!

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 !!!!

They do something like that over here in Canada ..... its called graduated licensing and is designed to let new drivers get driving experience and skills gradually. The two-step process takes at least 20 months to complete. You start with a G1 license .... You have to have that one for a year before sitting your G1 test (you can cut the time to 8 months if you take govt. approved Driving courses that give you a certificate). As a G1 driver you have to have a 0.0 alcohol level, have a qualified driver with you at all times, and cannot drive on any of the high speed roads like highways or expressways. Once you pass your G1 test, you become a G2 driver and must stay at this level for another 12 months. As a G2 driver you get a few more privileges, you dont need an accompanying driver, you can drive on the highways etc but you still have to maintain a zero alcohol level, and quite importantly, between the hours of midnight and 5am, if the driver is 19 or under, they are restricted in the number of passengers they can carry (3 max) and further limited in how many of those passengers can be under 19 (1 only unless the front seat passenger is older and has a full license) .... Its designed to cut down things like "boy racing" and such like. Having said that ..... the carnage on the roads here is still bad !!! and that is from every age range !!! http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/dandv/dri...radu/index.html

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

Hey its not just you guys !!!! We have a city mayor who leans towards the NDP (think left of centre like labour) We have a provincial government that is liberal (equivalent to Lib Dems) and a Federal government that is Conservative ..... bottom line is that we are being screwed by them all, manufacturing jobs are disappearing like nobody's business and petrol prices have gone up by about 70% in just over a year ......

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:

Historically there have been seven Westminster constituencies covering Inverness or Inverness-shire: * One burgh constituency: Inverness Burghs, 1708 to 1918 * Five county constituencies: o Inverness-shire, 1708 to 1918 o Inverness, 1918 to 1983 o Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber, 1983 to 1997 o Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber, 1997 to 2005 o Ross, Skye and Inverness West, 1997 to 2005 o Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey 2005 onwards 1708 - 1918: Inverness Burghs was a district of burghs constituency, covering the parliamentary burghs of Inverness, Fortrose, Forres and Nairn. The Inverness-shire constituency covered, the county of Inverness minus the burgh of Inverness. 1918 - 1983: [attach=1] 1983 - 1997: [attach=2] 1997 - 2005: [attach=3] 2005 - now: [attach=4] anyhoo. yes, Russell Johnston is a sad loss and I know both my mum and my uncle will be mourning him as both worked for him in (successful) election campaigns. When he was an MP, we used to get a Christmas card from the Commons every year and I used to enjoy listening to him speak as he was a good orator.

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.

Looks like Brew may have pressed the right buttons with Rory ...... and the thought of a first team spot up for grabs may well have given him that final extra push he needed. http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.a...0724/?UserKey=0 Those quotes make me want to get right behind him and urge him on to success. Perhaps, amongst all this negativity recently we can actually try and do something positive by encouraging fans to get behind both Rory and Garry as well as all the other young lads .........

I have received many little snippets of information during this whole saga - some I have used, some I have not - and if even half of them are true then the words p*** up and brewery do spring to mind. However, I tend to agree with you that we should try and wait until all is said and done before passing final judgement. Mind you, that is quite difficult when you have club officials contradicting themselves on an almost daily basis as CaleyD highlighted earlier in this thread. Also .... arent you breaking your own rule and making an ill-informed attack on Dinamo and Niculae ? If you want to wait to see if the club have done anything wrong, how can you make the assertion that this is all a Dinamo-Niculae stitch up or that publishing the documents was unprofessional ?

I would not use the word 'give'. Orion paid 270k for shares and that payment was to be used to cover the wages of MN for up to two years. We are selling him after 1 year (so wages of 135K ?) and it would appear that we will make the whole 270K (and more) back on the deal so Marius will have been a net gain (especially after the Euro cash). As for the waiver - I understand the number is quite high so I can further understand why both the player and the club are digging their heels in. Ultimately, a verbal contract isnt worth the paper its not written on so if thats all the club have to go on they may as well cut their losses and stump up so this saga can be ended.

I would be very careful in making statements like that Jnr .... I dont think anyone has suggested that this fee is lining anyone's pockets and unless you can prove it you are on dangerous ground. I have no idea where any money we receive will go or what size "hole" may be in our accounts as they have not been sent to shareholders yet but one thing I am certain of ... despite my frustration at what seems to be a pissing match between former chairmen, the shareholder I think you may be referring to has put far more in over the years than he has ever taken out. I can be angry at him for what I perceive as a needless boardroom conflict but that does not wipe out my positive view of his contribution to ICT over many years. As frustrating as it is, I can understand why nothing has been put on the official website. We can speculate all we like on here, we can publish stories using phrases like "it is our understanding" or "media reports suggest" but when it hits the official website (and the same was true when we were official) it has to be correct as that is then the official story. I am sure Fiona is itching to get the full ICT side of this story up but her hands are tied until others can conclude the deal. I cant say I will necessarily believe the final story, but I can certainly understand why its not there yet. As for the chairman, yes, that does surprise me. He has been completely anonymous since he took over and I am not sure what to make of that. Is he quietly doing thigs in the background? or is he doing nothing? we dont know. Even the 'quietest' chairman we had (Mackie) was more ebullient than Mr Fraser. Dennis was totally different. That initially appeared to be a Brewster screw-up and morphed into something slightly different when no-one ever came out to deny the assertion made by club officials that his agent asked for more money at the 11th hour. I still believe Brewster got this wrong but given that lack of denial I find it a little more palatable than I did at the time. With regards to Niculae, it is my opinion that his fate was sealed the day that Alan Savage stepped down as chairman and as I mentioned above, that his departure had more to do with office politics than a reason on the playing/contractual side. All in all - whichever side you believe in this Niculae situation, or whatever you think of anyone involved, I think one thing we can ALL agree on is that it is time for it to end, and for it to end NOW.

Did he ? According to some he wanted to sign an extension at ICT but it looked like we couldnt get rid of him fast enough. In the same situation (working abroad), would you not prefer to "go home" rather than back to a third country where you had already been and didnt do that well......... If this is what they have done then fair play for chancing their hand but if its not in the contract, its not in the contract and we should just accept the fact that someone may have mixed up their ?s and their ?s when looking at the numbers and move on. If it is in the contract then we have nothing to worry about. As for the defender .... I really wonder how much - if any - Brewster will see of this money given recent comments in the press from our DoF.

:clapping03: :clapping03: - indeed. lets get them signed up on (long) contracts ASAP, on real paper, and with a pen that doesnt have disappearing ink. Munro, Cowie and Black could be the spine of our team for years to come. If we do make any money from the Niculae transfer in the end, I would prefer to see it used wisely and securing the services of these three (and a few others) on decent deals (and dare I say it on decent wages) would be a wise move as far as I am concerned.

:015: :015: - wish I was back in Cuba right now .....

Sounds to me like there will be no winners in this, only losers. Regardless of who you believe, or what the real story is, ICT's reputation will be somewhat damaged because its another saga that fans and players will all know about. Whether they know the real story or not is immaterial, in fact the real story itself is also immaterial and the old saying that "mud sticks" is appropriate in this case. As for the player, he will likely come away from all this with a healthy respect for the fans, and probably for his team-mates but not for the club and you can bet your bottom dollar that he will not be shy in telling other players how he thinks he has been treated .... All in all its a very messy situation and quite hard to believe given that the player himself actually wanted to sign an extension only a month or two ago.

... wonder if anyone might suggest that to him. He was good in liaising with the fans and right now I think that is something ICT are in dire need of. ... heard he was starting out on his own in some consultancy capacity. Good luck to him whatever route he decides to take.

sounds about spot-on I would think.

the one on the thread ? or the bigger version ? If its the one on the thread then no idea, its a standard jpeg so unless you have used something to block inline images it should load. If its the larger version then maybe you are blocking popups in which case you should be able to hold down ctrl button and click on it.

I think we all agree on the overall principle, Its just a few of the details where we might have slightly different takes. However, it was refreshing to have a somewhat serious debate where views and opinions could go back and forth without too much bickering ;) EDIT: OK, time to go jump in my car and navigate the mighty 401 !!! They call a portion of it the "Highway of Heroes" because the bodies of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan travel along it on their way to the main coroner's office in Downtown Toronto .... but the section I drive (a different part, further west) could quite easily be named the Highway of Halfwits !

It wasnt a case of how much a life is reasonably worth - I dont think there can be an answer to that .... However, it may be easier or more quantifiable to debate how much one person can reasonably be expected to do to try and ensure the safety of themselves and others around them when driving. No, I dont think you are being unreasonable, and I think I posted something a lot further back in this thread that said safety is far more important than efficiency in terms of upgrading roads like the A9 instead of others. To go back to your deer thing .... It is not reasonable for me in my current location to fit one, but if I lived in Northern Ontario or even in Northern Scotland then it is one thing that might be regarded as reasonable as I too have been in a car (on the A9, at night) where a deer came out of nowhere and came into contact with the car. Volvo are definitely up there as innovators in safety, thats for sure. I would not dream of starting my car without putting it on yet it wasnt that long ago that some cars didnt even have them, or the law didnt require people to wear them and way too many people still dont (think something like 3000 people were charged in the most recent week-long 'blitz' here in Toronto). I am also very happy with the ABS braking system in my car and things like side airbags will be a consideration when I buy my next car (only have front ones right now). When I replaced my tyres just before Christmas, I did some serious searching on the Internet to find out which ones were rated the best for safety and ended up with Michelin Harmonies which were not the cheapest but had the best overall rating in just about every category out of the makes available for my car.