Charles Bannerman

The sentiments expressed in this thread are very laudable indeed, but I can't help feeling that they are based on a bit of an irony. What the well intentioned OP suggests is that fans should donate from their own funds, effectively to allow football players, most of whom earn far more than they do, to enjoy levels of pay which are way above the market value of what they do. One of the reasons that most football clubs struggle for cash and depend on donations from the wealthy (and indeed not so wealthy) is that they are trying to find wages which are considerably higher than their players' effective earning power. Now, I can't see a way out of this for as long as it is driven from the top by remunerating idiots well enough for them to blow half a million on a night's gambling and sustained below that by attempts to retain full time playing staff who arguably aren't actually good enough to deserve that status. These attempts also include sugar daddies allowing economic nonsense to prevail and there is something fundamentally wrong with football's relationship with money. I don't want to knock Elgin 1's good intentions, but what he has said raises a number of questions. Firstly, he says he is a teacher, in which case he would need to be fairly highly promoted if his earnings even match those of the players who have just failed to maintain Premiership status and there will be very many fans less well paid than E1. In ballpark figures, I think it's completely unjust to look to the bottom 90% or more of the earnings range to contribute towards sustaining the top 10% or less. It reminds me of an organisation which used to be called "The Society for the Relief of Indigent Gentlewomen of Scotland" whose business used to be to collect money from the public so that well heeled women who considered it below their status to work could be kept in luxury. It was utterly immoral! Then there's the irony that fans - justifiably - complain about ticket prices (which in turn are largely dictated by the need to pay these wage levels.) That being so, then where is the case for voluntarily coughing up even more to sustain these wage levels? The other consideration is that football simply tries, or in some cases needs, to ignore economic realities. If any normal business is unable to balance its books it either cuts costs, goes into liquidation.... or allows itself to merge or be taken over. The problem with this last one is that there will be few instances in football where this is practicable. I don't actually believe that the inner Moray Firth is capable of sustaining long term two Premiership football clubs - even when one is heavily subsidised by a benefactor. An economist landing on a space ship from another planet would propose a merger but we all know that, in a football environment, this is a total non starter. (It was barely feasible 20 odd years ago within the same, very local community, which Dingwall - Inverness isn't. But PLEASE nobody go "there" again!!) So, as a result of not subscribing to basic economic principles such as mergers, takeovers and wage restraint, football leaves itself with very few options and I don't think fan subsidy over and above ticket charges is realistic. On the other hand maximising sales of tickets by convincing people that purchase is worthwhile is another matter. Remember also that so-called "investment" in a football club is simply the making of non-returnable donations, either large ones from wealthy people or the smaller ones such as many of us made 20 years ago with our share purchases of £250 or whatever. A final word on the hotel proposal. Apart from wondering where these premises would be located, I must query Northern_jaggie's estimates where he appears to balance the capital cost of 20 bedrooms with gross earnings based on a number of projected outcomes (and about £80 a night). I don't see any provision in there for operating costs such as business rates, wages, food, energy, maintenance, VAT etc etc.

Agreed. However this doesn't seem to have prevented certain HL club whose benefactors have far more money than sense from continuing to pay ridiculous weekly wages and absurd signing on fees for training a couple of times a week and playing a poor standard of football in front of a couple of hundred people.

In that case, let me indulge in a bit of Devil's Advocacy. The scenario you have just described is that of a customer of a business. What would normally then happen is that a dissatisfied customer would take his custom elsewhere... but I have a feeling you won't be pitching up at the Global Energy Stadium next season. You do seem to be looking for the best of both worlds - leave the sorting of the business to other people, don't participate as a shareholder (even though that entitles you to attend and speak at the AGM), but retain the right to complain. Is that not a bit like looking for influence without responsibility?

, . F ' . , f . S m . There you go. I've even put all eleven of them in the correct order for you. All you need to do is to put them in the correct places and then head off to your anger management class!

This probably isn't the right moment to split hairs but, whilst I do agree that realistically only two of nine possible result permutations will do, the likelihood of reaching the playoffs now = (probability of ICT beating Motherwell) x (probability of Hamilton failing to beat Dundee).

If you speak really nicely to the Minister, Kenny, I'm sure he would make an exception

BUMP!

Yngwie... is it possible that any "windfalls" from the previous season weren't paid until the current accounting period so may lighten the load? Just a thought. Also, your remark about win bonuses may well come into the "many a true word spoken in jest" category.

BUMP!!! Best post of the night.

I'm still unclear as to what exactly is meant by the directors having to "accept the financial consequences" of any "losses" and how such a process was likely to be implemented.

The last (and indeed only) ICT director that I am aware of having received remuneration as a director is Graeme Bennett. The company is owned by the shareholders who in turn approve the appointment of (most of?) the directors to run its affairs on their behalf. By losses, and this MAY answer Snorbens' question, I am guessing you may be referring to any excess of expenditure over income in the financial year ending a fortnight Wednesday and/or any drop in income in the event of relegation. While there is still a chance of Premiership survival, I am very reluctant to become embroiled in any discussion of "blame" which does occur to me as a rather divisive distraction while there is any remaining chance of staying up. I am also not certain that this forum would be where my eventual viewpoint would emerge first. On the subject of any "anti board" sentiment, that is simply my ongoing perception. If you are a shareholder, and I have a hunch that you may be, you presumably have the right to place a motion of no confidence in the Board before the next AGM should you wish. I am not fully conversant with the Articles of Association, but I would guess that there may well also be the means of assembling an earlier Special General Meeting of the Company for the same purpose. In both instances, I would imagine that it would be advisable to have in place the means of quickly assembling a new board should any motion succeed.

One major flaw there would appear to be that these are volunteer directors who receive no remuneration for what they do on the club's behalf and you also appear to want to make them financially responsible for losses incurred - in a business which doesn't follow the basic rules of economics in the first place. Jam on both sides and butter round the edges comes to mind. Any profit they make goes into funding a player pool which already has costs way out of proportion with what the customers pay for the product. Any loss in what is an extremely high risk business and you expect these volunteers to be personally responsible. I wonder how many volunteers there would be to become directors if these were the rules? And what precisely is meant by "fund the losses"? How would you propose they do this? In advance of a definitive outcome to the current situation, I'm not going to attribute blame publicly although I generally take the view that, in an environment where room for manoeuvre has always been extremely limited, the Board have made mistakes which must also be viewed alongside the successes of their watch. I am prepared to say as much, and elaborate on it objectively when things become clearer... all under my own name. On the other hand, I can't help but feel that caleyboy has a preconceived "anti-board" agenda which he is content to express from behind a mask of anonymity.

I always like to revisit pre-match comments post-match!

Time to "get your boiler suit on and get your sleeves rolled up"?

That's how many?

Yes, the County Conspiracy theory certainly seems to be this week's Locker Room Philosophers' favourite. Before that it was a 3-2 vote to retain Foran at a meeting in a former director's house that precipitated Richard Smith's resignation - all of two weeks after Richard resigned. Oh, and the club also went into administration at the end of April. Add to that McGilvray and Savage both having taken over at least three times as the number of ex-Caley fans now boycotting the club reaches 20,000, and there's never a dull moment!

Now that was indeed during the O'Brien's sandwich era although I don't actuallly recall them doing prawn. Their ham salad and their smoked salmon were both very nice though!

I did think about that, and "achieved" was the best single word I could think of!

....today is the 15th of May, and hence the anniversary.... the 13th anniversary..... of the scoreline Caley Thistle 3 St Johnstone 1 which achieved SPL football for the first time in 2004.

Gringo... I'm not going to go back there in detail, but I'm going to have to disagree. To be realistic, there weren't that many in the city who gave a toss one way or another about the merger in the first place. Remember that, after both sides had recruited to a standstill for a month and in a town with a population at the time of around 45,000, Caley's total membership for the second vote was only 576 and no more than 226 ever voted against. Before this exhaustive recruitment, Caley only had 180 season ticket holders and hence members. Thistle's numbers were much smaller still and nearly a third of the population weren't even born when all that stuff happened. This is an urban myth which really needs to be left behind as we move on. If you don't mind I'll also mention the notion of "needing investment". This is often quoted in football but what it really means is that a club would like to spend more than it is earning. Other types of business cut their cloth to suit their profit and loss accounts but in football there seems to be this expectation that wealthy individuals will subsidise the fundamentally loss making operation. This isn't really "investment", which is the input of money with a view to making a profit for you; it's quite simply a donation or subsidy which seems to be factored in among football's expectations. The reality is that players are paid and expect to be paid far, far more than the realistic market value of what they do and the gap in some cases is filled - not in a very stable and sustainable way, it has to be emphasised - by these subsidies and donations from wealthy people, which do happen but it's not realistic to expect them. In relation to players' wages, ticket prices should actually be far higher and very often they are kept down by these subsidies - which I am sure is what is behind the recently announced £100 reduction in season ticket prices on the other side of the Firth.

Trivia question for you.... when did ICT last achieve back to back league victories?

Whether or not reports that Horner bet on Caley Thistle losing are accurate, I couldn't say. But anyone who does bet on a team losing a match and is playing in it for that team is de facto guilty of match fixing. Can anyone, for instance, be certain that the player will not undercook a tackle which may influence the scoring of the losing goal or send a sitter marginally over the bar?

Scottish football's three major competitions all being sponsored by bookies is kind of like waving a double whisky beneath the nose of an alcoholic. It has been clear for some time that betting is endemic within football and its following to the extent that it has long since developed into the problem described. So what do the governing bodies do? Have bookies as their three main competition sponsors. Clearly these bookies are sufficiently cynical to identify a series of cheap sponsorship deals which, on the other hand, carry a disproportionate market exposure for them with this kind of access. Without scruple, they exploit this to the absolute maximum and with as little regard for the wreckable lives they are getting a cheap hotline into as they have for how many shops they open in poor and vulnerable areas like the Merkinch. If you are in any doubt about what a sinister influence bookmakers are, drop into the Merkinch charity For The Right Reasons in Grant Street and speak to Richard Burkitt.

You are almost tempting me to suggest that football is actually responsible for frittering away a worrying slice of the nation's general sporting talent pool. The irony here would be Scotland's failure to produce senior football players of quality (q.v. the national side) while many other sports which are arguably being deprived of talent by the manner in which football goes about its business are actually doing quite well on the international stage.

This is one of the crucial considerations and shows an excellent insight on PerfICT's part into the generic process of sports coaching. Apart from frightening the hell out of Pele when he asked me for some suggestions for fitness work after the 1997 D3 title and doing an odd running related session for Charlie and Neale Cooper, I have no background whatsoever in football coaching. However in 40 years of coaching athletics I've covered a range of events from Primary school up to Great Britain level and the quoted passage is just as relevant in developmental terms. My experience has been that the superstar 11 year olds very seldom make it through to full senior level for a variety of reasons. The "shaving at 10" issue is a major factor and there are so many other environmental considerations and questions of attitude which also intervene that the banana skins between early teens or thereby and adult status are legion. The other consideration is that a player may be a stand out as, say, a U13 but that's only a one or two year age band. Once they reach senior status, they have the whole world as potential opponents and rivals. The 1 in 20 ballpark figure is an interesting one. I assume that this is 1 in 20 even of the relatively small sample already selected by clubs at, say, 11 which does leave you with a very small slice of the population. I also wonder if parents and indeed young players themselves realise that even once they've been "signed by Caley Thistle" (or any other leading club), the chances of them making it right through are still pretty remote. Indeed even when you get to under 20 level, the odds against making it among the full cohort of professionals are still quite long. This really isn't all that surprising, given how few established professional players there are within the population as a whole - or looking at it another way, how small a slice of the population have the talent levels to succeed long term. One thing does rather concern me about football, and please correct me if this is no longer the case. I had, however, been under the impression that many clubs, benefiting from the widespread desire to become a professional footballer, work by taking in large numbers at around 11 and progressively offloading them when it becomes apparent that they won't make it. That may suit the football clubs and possibly milks the delusion I spoke about earlier. However, it appears that these young players, once it becomes apparent that they won't travel too far up the tree, are simply binned. Then you have to wonder how much of a sporting future there is for them anywhere else once football clubs have declared them surplus to requirements. Will they transfer sports and try to excel at something else? Or, now demotivated, will they persist more casually with football and end up in the "kick and rush, then off to the pub" of the amateur Leagues and waste their sporting talents.