Charles Bannerman

Apart from the standard resolutions, there was probably as much said about the current, positive football situation as about finances. The manager, among many other things, revealed that, in the light of last season’s glut of May games and this season’s injuries, he has already taken steps to lighten training in anticipation of what might potentially be an even bigger concentration this year. He also revealed that the consensus among the squad was not to visit Hampden the day before the semi, and that a meeting had been held in advance of what will be the team’s VAR debut. Oh, and approval has been given to wear the HOME strip. As regards finances, the Chairman and CEO were both keen to emphasise the Freeport/ Battery farm etc initiatives for future funding, but this appears still to be some time in the future. The Chairman gave what perhaps wasn’t the clearest of indications that, especially given the demise of the Concert Company, they have - unsurprisingly - been depending on benefactors to maintain cash flow. However the CEO did volunteer, when it was suggested that the concerts had been financially unsuccessful, that the football club did receive from the Concert Company, in advance, payment for stadium hire and booking fees… and in full as opposed to the reduced payout, reported at the time as 65%, received by at least some other creditors. The Scottish Cup pay out will not be made until participation is at an end.

ROLLOX!! That’s what they want to call themselves…. Rollox FC. The establishment is best known as the St Rollox locomotive works (my grandfather worked there during WW1) and to me, the “Caledonian” bit is incidental, originating from the works making engines for the former Caledonian Railway (for which my other grandfather worked). If they don’t like Rollox FC and are all that concerned about having a name relating to their red and yellow badge then I suggest that they should call themselves Partick Thistle FC… and create some employment for the renowned PTFC posse of QCs with whom we in Inverness became more than familiar in days gone by. But in any case, SFA Articles of Association would appear to suggest that they are on a hiding to nothing anyway… so ROLLOX TO THEM!!

What a ghastly, negative video with at least two thirds of it harking back almost 30 years to the least appealing aspects of a 2-3 year process that so far has yielded 12 seasons in the SPL/Premiership, a place in its top six, European football and a Scottish Cup win… not to mention lower league and Challenge Cup wins. I was also at all of these tense episodes shown here, and a good deal more… also as a BBC reporter. Many on this thread will also have seen the tale unfold live. I see no case whatsoever for a video of this length, most of which attempts to portray the formation of this club in an unduly negative manner.

Spot on Johndo. When I wrote my Courier column …. dismissing a merger as “inconceivable”…. the commitment on March 1st that this AGM would take place this coming Tuesday (28th March) or very soon after was still alive. I don’t have the legal background (Companies Act etc) on Articles of Association but intuitively I find it difficult to see how a delay of four months can be permissible. I’m also not clear why they have failed to deliver on their commitment to 28th March. Maybe it’s simply that they failed to note that Scotland are playing that night but in that case a slightly amended date should have been named long ago. I would feel a lot easier if I could think of an alternative explanation that’s free from the quite sinister implications that this ongoing delay is simply inviting speculation about.

I did that on December 21st, AGM deadline day, by writing as a shareholder to the CEO. There has been no reply. I also made the same query the following day as a journalist through the media department who acknowledged my email and said they would pass it on. There has been no reply.

That is also my reading of the situation. Para 55 of the Articles of Association (which I accessed through Companies House) states that an AGM must be held within each year and that no more than 15 months must elapse between AGMs. This made the deadline 21st December last year - three months ago. If Para 55 of these Articles were not to be binding on the Board, then that would presumably also render the entire document redundant, which I would find difficult to believe. Perhaps there needs to be some recognition of the fact that the shareholders actually own the club and they appoint a board to run it on their behalf, which includes making appointments such as of the CEO and the football manager. At the risk of being repetitive, I find it astonishing that the board still has to acknowledge any of the content of a worrying set of accounts published by a completely external party three weeks ago and has, without explanation, failed to hold an AGM on a stated date of March 28th. Failure to meet this latter commitment can only raise concerns and speculation as to why….or is it simply because they noticed that this was the date of a Scotland game?

Will Hull 802 still require a proxy?

It has been clear for some time that the apparent pledge in the statement issued on behalf of the Chairman on March 1st to hold this statutory gathering on March 28th will not be fulfilled. The requirement to give 21 days’ notice currently means that no gathering can be held before 10th April, even if notice was served tomorrow. Implicit in Para 55 of the company’s Articles of Association is that the deadline for holding this meeting was 21st December of last year, so the extent of the apparent default appears currently to stand at 3 months and 20 days… and counting. As regards the company’s accounts, these were filed with Companies House on the deadline day of 28th February and duly publicised through the media from that source. So far, to my knowledge, the company has made no acknowledgement of its own of their content - not even to the extent of a single figure such as the £835,000 loss. Apart from that, shareholders and supporters have absolutely no information about the club’s financial fortunes in almost 10 months since the end of the period covered by these 31.5.22. accounts - a period during which the Concert Company, touted in earlier accounts as an apparent financial saviour…. collapsed with still unknown implications for the football club, despite (mercifully!) their having been technically separate entities. Now that the accounts have been filed with Companies House and an AGM date informally made public… why has the latter not been adhered to? At least there will be the revenue from the cup run - whenever that arrives - but, although extremely welcome, this is no panacea for a fundamentally loss making business of unclear cash flow status, kept afloat by wealthy well wishers.

There was nothing to bite at. I was just availing myself of the opportunity to clarify that, although the headline suggested that I was calling for a merger, in the article I actually described one as “inconceivable”.

Firstly I would emphasise that I did NOT advocate a merger between Ross County and ICT in that column. I actually dismissed it as “inconceivable” but unfortunately a headline was written implying that I had, and it appears that a great number of people who are not Courier online subscribers simply read headlines and guess the story from them without reading articles. What I actually did was to evaluate the financial situation in terms similar to what I’ve been doing here and I then concluded with the following passage (please in particular note the sentence “An obvious…… inconceivable”)…. “I now believe that two biggish clubs in this local area aren’t sustainable without serious charity from the wealthy, and Ross County have far more stable, albeit not necessarily indefinite, benefactor arrangements. Currently County are grimly hanging on in the Premiership with Inverness not even doing that. An obvious business solution would be a merger into a single, much more substantial and viable entity, but this is football where tribalism and supporter resistance make such solutions (Inverness 1994 excepted) inconceivable. Football instead resorts to its own economics of the madhouse and 30 years of that have certainly contributed to, but don't totally explain, Caley Thistle's current predicament, despite decades of wellwishers bearing gifts.”

Current issues include:- * An AGM, the holding of which is doubly in default of Para 55 of the Articles of Association, has yet to take place. * Based on a throw away remark in a statement issued nine days ago, we are led to believe that this is to be held on March 28th (the night of a Scotland Euro qualifier v Spain). However the 21 days statutory notice of an AGM on that date (Para 58) expired three days ago. * On February 28th, the last day allowed for filing, the accounts appeared on the Companies House website indicating losses to May 2022 of £835,000 and increased debts to trade creditors and HMRC, but no indication of turnover. So far there has been no acknowledgement, such as in the March 1st statement, by the club of any detail of these accounts. * What changes have there been in the club’s financial status in over nine months since May 2022? * Given that the Concert Company collapsed (with minimal detail provided), new income sources are urgently needed. Much has been made of a potential deal with a land company and of a battery farm. Given that the club’s capacity to earn money is very limited (although unknown due to the absence of a turnover figure) it would appear that the need for these income streams is quite urgent. How quickly will the battery farm etc come on stream?

I am on an identical mission to yourself, DD. The only indication of an AGM date has been an informal and incidental reference to 28th March concealed in the middle of last Wednesday’s extremely lengthy statement, although there had previously been speculation about 21st February - but that never materialised. For the 21 days’ notice specified in Article 58 to be realised, this would have to have been given yesterday but, as you say, there’s nothing in the post or on the website. I suppose it might conceivably have been mailed yesterday, but to me the relevant date is when it’s received, not when it’s sent… so it’s late. This situation is becoming increasingly unsatisfactory since even March 28 would be more than three months in breach of Article 55, but there’s more. The accounts were made public on 28 Feb by bodies external to the club (Companies House, whose deadline 28 Feb was, and the media) and to my knowledge, apart from inference from Scot Gardiner’s radio interview, the club itself has not yet even acknowledged that these accounts exist. They are not even referred to in that statement issued on the Chairman’s behalf the following day (Mar 1). I also seem to recollect that information about the collapse of the Concert Company back on the autumn was also sparse in the extreme, even though this had been touted as a potential saviour. As far as the accounts to May 2022 are concerned, I’m disappointed that the turnover figure has been withheld because we need to know what percentage the loss is of that turnover or of total expenditure. As far as shareholders are concerned, I am a simple £250 foot soldier, but there are people who have put hundreds of thousands of pounds which they will never see again into that club to keep it solvent and some clarity is urgently needed.

On December 21st, the deadline for holding an AGM, I wrote as a shareholder to the CEO asking when the AGM was scheduled for? By coincidence, it emerged that day that I was not the only shareholder wondering the same thing, so on December 22nd I submitted a media query to the club on the same subject. I have still received no answer to either question.

And it doesn’t even quantify/admit to the magnitude of the losses. I find it bizarre that after external parties made this company’s losses public, the company itself completely fails to acknowledge their existence in a prepared statement. There seems to be much enthusiasm for highlighting links with property management companies and Freeports and Battery Farms when the relevant questions must surely be: “How confident are you that these projects are going to be any more fruitful than the Concert Company?” and “On that subject, what are the implications for the football club of the Concert Company’s collapse?” and “What is the club’s current financial status as opposed to nine months ago as in these accounts, which also pre-date the demise of the Concert Company?” and “What have you been doing for cash flow in recent months?”

Spot on NJ. I find the minimalism associated with this whole affair very unacceptable. The excerpts from the accounts don’t even give profit and loss and to find the loss you have to scour the notes. This also means that there’s no indication of the vital parameter of turnover, which hence also prevents anyone from working out what the loss is as a percentage of expenditure or turnover which I think is quite important. Then there’s today’s verbose statement which is most notable for its attempts to create a smokescreen obscuring what really matters. I am absolutely astonished that a statement made on behalf of the Chairman 24 hours after the account details have leaked out via parties unconnected with the club should fail even to have an acknowledgement of how big the loss is. The statement failed to take ownership of extremely adverse circumstances which, as I write, the club itself has not yet acknowledged. And then there’s the first revelation of the date of the overdue AGM which appears incidentally to something else, and half way through this wordy statement. This doesn’t exactly make it very easy to obtain information about what’s clearly a critical situation.

Cheers DD. Post edited accordingly. I must have missed that in the statement …. not difficult in 800 words where a revelation of what is one of the key, urgent club issues of the day - the date of its very overdue AGM - appears about 400 words in and in a context which is incidental to an arrangement with a land management concern. I therefore look forward as a shareholder to receiving notification of this meeting and attendant documentation by Tuesday 7th March. I’ve got to say that I find this statement a slightly baffling way of communicating. As I see it, there are two items of information needing urgently and clearly communicated - the club’s financial details and a date for a very overdue AGM - but one is omitted completely while the other is obscured in the bowels of an extremely wordy statement.

Yes, I know it’s been a very long time since I’ve posted on here…life has taken a few different directions, but I did remember my password! What’s prompted me to post now is this extremely articulate and very well informed thread on a topic I’ve followed with great interest since even before the club existed as a supporter, a journalist and for the last 26 years, a shareholder as well - its finances. Moving on from that rather lengthy reintroduction, I must say that I’m rather astonished that today’s lengthy club statement of around 800 words makes no admission whatsoever of the specifics of what’s looking like an ever deepening financial crisis, as revealed yesterday by external parties. Headline items here include losses increasing 3.5 fold to £835K… deeper in hock to HMRC and trade creditors… 64% fall in net assets, large increase in staff to 92 and the auditors slapping a “going concern” notice on the accounts. These details were only revealed through Companies House yesterday, the company’s deadline for filing there, and picked up by the media… all before shareholders and supporters have been told by the club. And this information vacuum, given the absence of any financial detail in that statement, remains the case unless a calling notice is on its way for an AGM which, according to the company’s articles of association, became overdue on 21st December last year.(EDIT - AGM now called for 28.3.22.) There has been such a delay with these accounts that the information they contain is now nine months out of date, which is a long time when financial fortunes are in freefall. Has the situation got even worse? In 2021 we were told that concerts were going to be the financial Messiah… and then the concert company collapsed. What are the implications of that, because even though the Concertco was a legally separate company from the FC, although both its directors were also FC directors, there must be reputational and other issues to consider and other apsects to scrutinise. And what are the specifics of these “land” arrangements and “battery farm”? Someone in an earlier post (and it’s great to see so many of the “usual suspects” of years gone by still contributing magnificently on this forum!) suggested that ICT hasn’t had a boost from benefactors like Ross County. I’m not sure if I totally agree with that and would start with Ian Fraser’s £330K in 1996 and continue through a multi-faceted £3-ish million from Tullochs, several hundred thousand from Muirfield Mills, part of a million in new capital that appeared during 2018-19 etc etc. Then there’s goodness know a how much in loans and donations just to keep the club solvent and it’s all gone simply to sustain a long term underlying loss situation. This club has therefore had substantial external assistance but still finds itself in the financial plight described in these nine month old accounts…. or possibly worse. However any insight provided to fans, shareholders etc has been very limited. Meanwhile one major current issue is why (EDIT now called for 28.3.23.) is why the deadline was so lengthily missed for an AGM where shareholders can require the board to shed some light on what appears to be an increasingly alarming situation?

When I spotted that Scotty had been good enough to give me a name check and decided to reply, I realised that I had been in "read only" mode for a long time so hadn't been logged in. Yes, I've been analysing a lot of Covid statistics, and in Highland we have really got off lightly, although suddenly rather less so since 21st December. We had spent most of this second wave sitting at 5-15% of the case levels Scotland had - eg typically if Scotland was at 150/100K population, we would be at 15. For many weeks a rule of thumb applied that you would have to attend half a dozen games with (a different) 300 at each before you were likely to have been in the same stadium as one infected person. Highland has the lowest death rate in mainland Scotland, and there have been just 3 Covid confirmed deaths since mid May. As recently as December 4 there were as few as four people among 64,000 in Inverness who had been diagnosed with Covid during the entire previous week. Although we were allocated to what I call "Tier 1.5" (the original Tier 1, but with the original promise of limited indoor contact withdrawn) we did seem to qualify for Tier 0 but never got it. On Dec 20, our incidence was 14.9, around 15% of the Scottish figure (it had been just 9.3 on Dec 8 ) but suddenly things started to go wrong more quickly in Highland than in the country as a whole because today our incidence is 62.8, or round 40% of the Scottish figure (which in turn is around 40% of the UK figure). Test positivity had been 0.5% but it's now 3.1%, although low Christmas test numbers aimed at the most urgent cases will influence that. In the first wave we never got higher than 30% of the Scottish case figure although if our first wave cases had been diagnosed using the second wave testing regime, incidence might have reached around 85/100K. So in Highland we have suddenly made a very rapid transition from being almost a Covid free zone to a rather worse place in just a week and indeed the areas which have suffered worst here do seem to be the ones which had been doing best before that - eg also Moray and Dumfries and Galloway. One major caveat with these statistics, though - there are so many variables that people can sometimes make them appear to say whatever they what them to say and I do believe that the media, various Governments and some scientific interests have been guilty of that. My own view is that a better strategy would be not to try to scare the hell out of people to get them to comply to often over-vicious restrictions but to control the disease better by more stringent enforcement of less rigorous constraints.

Even this long lapsed former contributor feels motivated to return briefly to respond, having belatedly watched the video after learning of the decision and reading Scott Gardiner’s excellent statement. A more obvious instance of a push than by the Rangers player is difficult to imagine, and how anyone outwith the Orange Lodge and capable of regarding that as a dive is allowed to referee at any level at all is one of life’s great mysteries. Then you have to start worrying very seriously about the competence of any governing body which can find not just one but three individuals gormless enough to agreewith this enormous howler. The next part of the narrative is more difficult to make stand up because it is easy to deny. However it is abundantly clear that the overwhelming presence of decisions of all kinds made by Scottish football’s governing bodies and favouring the Old Firm place that allegation well beyond doubt. Add in the frequency of complaints about referees and even take a chunk off to allow for managerial paranoia and the competence of Scottish officiating must be added to these charges of institutionalised Old Firm bias and governing body ineptitude. However I have a feeling that even something as outrageous as this will still be ignored by the Scottish football establishment which will carry on regardless as the game it is ruining continues to spiral into the ground.

I don’t think the issue is how many people who play football don’t get paid, because that is common across all sports. The issue is the extremely and uniquely large number who do get paid for playing football - where it’s possible to receive a regular wage, never mind simply payment by results, at remarkably low levels of competence, fitness and commitment compared with other sports. And below the top tiers, I don’t really think popularity is an overwhelming factor because there are plenty of teams paying players to perform in front of quite small crowds in relation to their wage bills. This is something often made possible firstly by the willingness of wealthy people to subsidise these clubs with large donations, often in return for perceived prestige..... and secondly due to the clubs supporting their excessive wage bills by charging the kind of ticket prices which the Original Post was about and which fans frequently find burdensome. .

Are you perhaps being a little generous, because the degree of athleticism I’ve seen within many parts of paid football has been woeful in the extreme? ? I was at a shinty event yesterday and, in conversation with two “top end” players, the point was made that it actually costs them money to play. Both are based within 50 miles of Fort William, so the issue of “the documentary” inevitably arose, and the fact that these guys were actually getting paid £20 a week to be as abysmal as they were. Then you similarly consider the unpaid players of Highland Rugby Club, just started in Scottish club rugby’s second tier, National 1. I write this from an hotel room in Stirling where my daughter is running in tomorrow’s Scottish 10K championships. One of many, this is actually one of the cheaper trips away to a race which will cost her about £80. She has a full time job, trains six days a week and buys all her own kit. The only opportunity of reducing her costs is to win a race or take a top three finish, in which case there may be a prize, usually in the ballpark of £50 (or maybe just vouchers). This is the scenario for someone pretty near the top end, with a number of Scotland selections to her name. Others slightly further down the pecking order, but still decent club runners, won’t even have the prize opportunities she has. And it’s all in complete contrast with the scenario wynthank15 describes where, for instance, in the Highland League there are hundreds of pounds a week paid, win, lose or draw, to play fifth tier football and - often begrudgingly - train twice a week. PS - I do also note that the papers in their headlines also often apply the term “footballer” to guys who play in their local amateur leagues etc and who find themselves in court for whatever reason.?

I think the root cause is to be found in that old chestnut which is football's adoption of the Economics of the Madhouse - specifically in this case there being more full time football in Scotland than the market can comfortably sustain, alongside the sport's willingness to pay players over generously in relation to their ability and input. In order to pay 20-odd guys full time wages to perform an activity which only earns money for the business for 90 minutes approximately once a week in front of modest crowds, Championship clubs (most of them full time) really have to push the boat out as far as possible in terms of earnings. In many cases (including ICT) they also rely on donations and subsidies from wealthy individuals and concerns.... and still sometimes sail perilously close to the wind in terms of administration and insolvency. This has at least two negative implications for their customers - the fans. Firstly, clubs have to maximise ticket income and presumably various boards have concluded that the level which maximises that income (number of admissions x price) is in the £17 - £24 range. Many fans doubtless, and understandably, feel this is pretty expensive for a 90 minute event where a guarantee of customer satisfaction is a lot less certain than, for instance, in the theatre. However, fan loyalty to the product means that boards know that the normal parameters of price elasticity of demand also don't fully apply in football. To some extent that loyalty is therefore exploited by boards and translated into excessively generous player wages. Another major down side for fans is inconvenient kick off times - such as tonight's in Inverness, which appears, understandably, not to have gone down well with Morton supporters. However, such is the need to earn TV money, principally to pay players, that this supporter goodwill is again taken for granted when these concessions are made to TV companies. I'll also indulge in a bit of Devil's Advocacy (please note!) and ask - "Would fans accept a poorer standard of play through lower full time wages or part time status in return for a substantial reduction in ticket prices?" or.... "If it's too expensive, why do you keep paying?" It has long been my view that football's Achilles heel is the payment of excess wages and the presumption that players will be paid for a very low level of performance and input. For this you need look no further than the Highland League where the "moneybags" clubs are paying totally silly sums and even Fort William were paying £20 a week for guys to concede 7 goals a game. This also in return for what, in the grander scheme of things, is little more than "kick and rush" fifth tier Scottish football. Many people in other sports - especially those who are out of pocket in order to be high performers - don't know whether to laugh or cry at the sense of entitlement in return for very little which is institutionalised within football. However the bottom line (yes.... it's here at last - I'm just making up for lost time in this one-off return on a subject which interests me!) is that it's football fans' pockets and convenience which, in part at least, pay for the widespread remuneration of players above their realistic market value.

Not a chance. I've already made this year's contribution, so am content to leave IHE to his Senior Citizen's Inverness football fantasy, apparently inspired by some bizarre Faustian relationship with flares, male perms, dodgy stamps and gallons of Scotsmac in the Howden End. The world has moved on a long way since an argument that was settled before the turn of the millennium. Over, and well and truly out.

I'm making just my second contribution here in a year of self-imposed purdah because I feel strongly enough about this to want to back up Scotty's effort to put the record straight about David Sutherland. Sutherland's, and hence Tulloch's involvement with the club began right at the start of 2000 and their contributions have AT LEAST amounted to the following:- * When the club's debt hit around 2.3M late in 1999 DS, as Tulloch Chairman, arranged for the company to spirit that debt away; otherwise Administration or worse would have been inevitable. That happened in conjunction with the stadium and lease transferring by a complex route to Tulloch. These have recently been largely gifted back to the club to the its great additional benefit. Coincidentally the book value of that gift is also quoted as 2.3M so that huge debt has gone at the expense only of Tulloch retaining much of the car park. * In order to ensure working capital to enable progress to the SPL in 2004, Tulloch/Sutherland also initially put in 0.5M, and other supplements made them the owners of these 729,500 shares which were more recently donated back to the ICT Trust. Tulloch has therefore voluntarily relinquished its former position as largest shareholder. * In order to ensure an escape from an unsustainable lease at Pittodrie in 2004/05, Tulloch/Sutherland ensured that funding was put in place for the North and South stands and built these themselves, within the required very tight 7 week timescale. These stands are also part of that gift back to the club. Surely even the hungriest of supporters could not expect a totally free lunch from this, so there was indeed a rent involved. * There also were various other day to day assistances such as the free secondment of Tulloch staff to work at the club which constitute a further benefit. * In recent years the club's need for its expenditure vastly to exceed its earnings has been largely sustained by loans and donations from wealthy individuals with its best interests at heart - including David Sutherland. It is estimated that Tulloch's investment, instigated and implemented by David Sutherland has, over the years, come to approaching 6 million, before you include his recent personal donations. It's all very well for Inverness fans to point to Roy MacGregor as a major benefactor of Ross County but it always seems to be forgotten that ICT has also benefited in a major way from handouts from interested parties, principally Tulloch. Without these the club would at best have been playing part time football for years with never a sniff of the SPL, Europe or the Scottish Cup... or at worst gone into liquidation at some point during 2000 or 2001. The biggest irony of all, however, is that on the one hand there seems to be this expectation within football that wealthy individuals will bankroll the game's economics of the madhouse... but on the other, the far too frequent vilification of these individuals for their contributions is likely to act as a major disincentive to others to follow suit. Talking about kicking a gift horse in the mouth..... Over and out.

Logging in for the first time in nine months, I had almost forgotten how to do so - albeit only logging in to clarify that “full use of the free bar” amounted to two small glasses of Diet Coke from a supermarket bottle. Not perhaps an unreasonable return on 25th Anniversary weekend for the 70,000 words provided in the official account of the events in question all these years ago. And with that single observation, I will depart, even less likely now to return than I was last May..... given some of the contributions I have seen on my very occasional intervening “read only” visits.