DoofersDad

So having gigs at the stadium is nothing new! That was some line up though. Atomic Rooster originally had Carl Palmer in their line up on drums but he left to be part of the trio of Emerson Lake and Palmer. Don't know if that would have been before or after coming to Inverness but he was a class act.

I think it looks great. It matches my complexion. We've got a cracking couple of kits for next season but unfortunately rather fewer games for them them to be seen.

I see Jake Mulraney was playing for Atlanta Utd tonight in the US Major Soccer League. He managed to get sent off in the 26th minute after a second yellow card!

Agreed. It seems that if all the clubs who have at some stage said that this was the sensible option had actually voted for it, everyone would now either be happy or at least not feeling too hard done by. Not forgetting Brora and Kelty who have been utterly shafted with no say at all over the matter.

Like you, I don't pretend to understand the ins and outs of legal processes, but it seemed to me that Lord Clark recognised that Hearts and Partick have been shabbily treated, yet felt he had no option but to rule that they were bypassing due process and the issue must go to arbitration. Had they done so, then presumably part of the preliminary process would have been to ask the SFA to request the various documents and records to be shared. Their argument would be that without such sharing, it would be impossible for the arbitration panel to determine whether the SPFL's actions had been appropriate or not. If the SFA refused to ask the SPFL for the documents or the SPFL refused to disclose them, then going to the Courts would be fair enough because they would have evidence that the arbitration process would not give them a fair hearing. I am not aware of any evidence to suggest that if due process had been followed, the relevant documents would not have been released. Nor can I recall seeing a statement from either of the clubs saying why they were by-passing the arbitration process. But having fallen out with the SPFL it does seem rather careless to then fall foul of the SFA as well. I'm not sure the SFA bringing a notice of complaint before the arbitration is dangerous. From their perspective, two clubs have acted in breech of the articles of association and therefore they are required under their rules to issue a notice of complaint. I suspect that SFA rules require issues to be dealt with within a specified timeframe, but waiting until the arbitration process was over might have left them open to accusations that the result of the arbitration influenced the decision to issue a notice of complaint. At least this way it is a straightforward case of the clubs having broken the rules and being subject to a disciplinary process as a result. Sure, as Kingsmills suggests there may well be a jobsworth mentality within the SFA, but if Hearts and Partick had followed the appropriate route in the first place, there would have been no question of a notice of complaint.

Is it idiotic to expect that rules are complied with? Hearts and Partick clearly have good reason to feel aggrieved with the SPFL and I have huge sympathy with their plight, but the SFA Rules of Association make it pretty clear that their arbitration process is the appropriate course of action in such cases. The Court of Session made it clear to Hearts and Partick that that was the case. We now have the situation that with the Premiership season due to start in just over 2 weeks time we have yet to start an arbitration process which should have happened a few weeks ago and which could potentially reinstate Hearts into the Premiership. The potential ramifications of that are obvious. Had Hearts and Partick gone to arbitration in the first place, then we could have had a definitive position by now. My advice to Hearts and Partick is to accept whatever the disciplinary process throws up and get yourselves new lawyers.

Didn't see that coming! Neilson obviously likes the Championship.

Absolutely agree with that. This is why the 14:10:10:10 model as temporary measure would have been the sensible option from the word go. Apart from ensuring no major disadvantage to any of the member clubs, it could have given breathing space to agree a more radical review of the way Scottish Football is structured. Hearts and Partick are right to feel aggrieved and betrayed by others member clubs but I think they are on dangerous ground here. They not only have the SPFL's Articles of Association to contend with but also those of the SFA. The SFA's require that when clubs are in dispute they should use the SFA's arbitration services, and the fact that the 2 clubs have chosen not to is why the SFA have written to both clubs to explain themselves. The clubs say that they are in dispute with the SPFL and not with any other club, however, the SPFL is a member organisation and it was the clubs themselves who voted to make the decision. Of course, you need to be a lawyer to understand the convoluted wording of these legal documents so I may have it all wrong. But it seems to me that the courts will simply tell Hearts and Thistle to go away and use the SFA's arbitration process. They could then be deemed in breech of both organisations' Articles of Association and be on the receiving end of sanctions from both. Added to that, if their action causes any delay in the Premiership season starting off, they could be liable for paying other clubs some compensation. One thing I don't understand here is why they have asked the courts to scrap promotions. Stopping clubs being promoted clearly harms other clubs as much as the vote which took place harms them. If they simply asked the courts to scrap relegations then there is a ready made solution in the 14:10:10:10 model. It seems like there is still some mileage in this saga and if we can be sure of one thing it is that the outcome will not be the right thing.

Is it Roy MacGregor's house?

This vote shows what little ambition so many clubs have. The 14:10:10:10 set up would have meant that each season no less than 8 clubs would be playing in a higher division than will now be the case. Together with the fact that those who voted against the proposal voted for the forced relegation of other clubs, today's vote really shows Scottish football in a very bad light. No doubt those clubs who voted against the proposal will be justifying their position on the grounds of "now is not the time for reconstruction", "we need to focus on dealing with the financial crisis", "we need unity at this time". We could have had unity and we could have combined it with decency and ambition. But the truth is that these clubs have voted for some narrow and in some cases, misguided, notion of self interest and Scottish football will be the worse for it.

And here https://ictfc.com/john-robertson-extends-contract-until-2022-23 Brilliant news. Robbo is a great fit for our club.

https://ptfc.co.uk/ptfc-news/board-update-13th-june-2020/ Brilliant statement from Partick Thistle. Let's hope it shames others into doing the decent thing. I'm not holding my breath though.

If we end up in the Premiership I think we would do well to avoid coming last. Having said that, the additional money would allow us to sign players we would not otherwise be able to. With the impact the virus is having on all clubs I think there will be a lot of decent players who will have some difficulty finding a club playing at the level they aspire to and we might find a bargain or two. We will be stronger in the Premiership than in the Championship. My guess would be that we might well survive in the Premiership, but if we are in the Championship we will not be good enough to win promotion. Also, Premiership money would mean that even if we did get relegated from the Premiership, we would be better placed to go straight back up the next season. Ronaldo is spot on. If we do get the opportunity we need to embrace it fully.

Interesting maybe, but presenting such a radical change so late in the day leaves little time for consultation. And what say do the Highland and Lowland league clubs have in all of this if there is a suggestion that other teams could field Colts teams in those leagues? Scottish football certainly needs radical reform but it also needs to think through the implications of any particular proposal. This is why agreeing to the straightforward 14,10,10,10 option as a temporary measure to addresses the current crisis is such a sound idea. Agreeing that for 2 or 3 seasons means there would be time to have some proper discussion on more radical structural changes.

Looks good. The club is going to need to get as much money as it can from its merchandising and this kit should be be a great help in achieving that. I'm not someone who usually buys the tops but I'll certainly get one of these.

Once it became clear that there was no chance of the the 2019/20 season being completed and that the Coronavirus was going to have a significant effect on clubs' finances, there was one obviously sensible solution which could and should have been agreed promptly. Had agreement been reached, then clubs would now be in a position where they would know which division they were playing in next season and what the makeup of that division was. It would have given clubs the opportunity to plan as well as is possible in what is an unprecedentedly difficult time. Two basic principles should have been accepted. These are 1) that no club should be unnecessarily disadvantaged by the fact that it was not possible to finish the season and 2) uncertainty should be eliminated as much as possible, as soon as possible. Making the Premiership a 14 team division and keeping the other 3 divisions as 10 team divisions by promoting the top 2 in each division and the champions of the Highland and Lowland leagues would have meant no relegation and would have satisfied those 2 basic principles. Any dissent to this could have been overcome by making it a temporary arrangement for 2 or 3 seasons with an agreement on a process to discuss restructuring. The SPFL management are there to represent the interests of all clubs but have clearly had a very different agenda. The capacity for Scottish football to shoot itself in the foot never ceases to amaze.

This is just such a difficult situation for all involved in trying to find a way forward. So much is completely out of the hands of those trying to come together to make decisions which will be acceptable to such a wide variety of needs and interests. In some ways it is great that we have now seen some modest relaxation of the lockdown rules but there is a lot of scientific advice saying that even this is too much too soon. The UK still has one of the highest rates in the world for new infections and the rates are a good bit higher than when other countries started to ease lockdown. There is a risk that rates could start to go back up again with a resultant return to full lockdown. It is clear that one of the last things to return will be mass gatherings and that is a real challenge for football clubs which rely more heavily on gate receipts for their survival. It is possible for the big clubs to play behind closed doors and get money in through televised coverage. Also, amateur clubs and some semi professional clubs could also survive as they get so little income from gate receipts anyway. Also, easing of lockdown may allow for gatherings of 100 or so provided the space available allows for social distancing rules to be respected, so a club which normally gets gates of 300 may be able to carry on as normal but a club with gates of 3000 will not. It is therefore clubs like ours that are likely to find it hardest to get back to some kind of normality. There is no easy way out of this. What is vital is that we get the virus under control and we can all help in this in maintaining social distancing and hygiene rules when we do go out. Then when football does finally return to our stadium, those of us that can still afford will need to make a point of supporting the club as much as we can. Whatever next season holds for ICT, the one thing we can guarantee is that it will need the support of its fans.

When I accessed the site there was a "thank you for your vote" message. I haven't voted but would have voted for Mark Ridgers. There appeared to be an option for the young players the year but my vote wasn't registered. The "vote" button simply disappeared when I moved the cursor over it. Clicking anyway made no difference with my chosen player still highlighted and the "vote" button reappearing when I moved my cursor away.

I have some sympathy for your view Lizi. But I'm afraid the "powers that be" do have an idea of what we want. The real power here is Sky TV, and their viewing figures show that the Scottish viewing public want to watch The Rangers and Celtic and particularly when they play each other. They also know that Scots would rather sit at home or in the pub and watch Liverpool or Man Utd or Barcelona than go out and support their local team. As long as premiership clubs feel they will be better off with the TV money than without it, then our league structure (at the top end at least) will be dictated by how much the TV companies are willing to pay for what.

It was good to hear our Chairman totally refute the suggestion that ICT were involved in a secret motion to null and void the season. There is not a shred of evidence that our Board and CEO have been anything other than totally consistent in their position throughout this fiasco. Perhaps those on here having a pop at our club should get in touch with those Chairmen and media outlets who have made the allegation and ask them to produce some evidence and to explain what our club would possibly have to gain from a null and void scenario. It is true that ICT were on board with Rangers and Hearts on an alternative motion to separate the payments to clubs from any decision on the final league placements and relegation and promotion issues. Scot Gardiner is on record as saying that the SPFL tried to dissuade them from pushing forward with the motion on the basis that if the motion was not passed it would leave us in a null and void situation (even though that would only ever have been the case if nothing else was agreed!). It seems likely to me that other clubs have somehow got the impression that the motion the 3 clubs were suggesting as an alternative to the SPFL's own motion was, in fact, a proposal for a null and void position. I wonder who could possibly have given them that impression?

Interesting article by Tom English. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52646285 In it, he says "Scottish football missed an opportunity to examine itself three years ago and it has missed another opportunity now. Strip away the bile and all the inter-club warfare and ask a simple question - can we do better than this? If a neutral party put that to a vote and asked club leaders, players and supporters to respond yes or no, what would the result look like? Can we do better? The answer, surely, would be an emphatic yes. This is the problem, though. When you try to lift the bonnet to have a look at how things are done, the thing that some want to know first is who's doing the lifting and why? What's their agenda? Who are they acting on behalf of? What are they really trying to do? That mentality chokes progress. It protects the status quo. Clubs have it in their gift to introduce radical change to the game if they so wish, but they don't want it - or don't want it enough. People like to talk about change, but not many are brave enough to see it through." Seems to sum up the situation pretty well.

Neil Doncaster?

Not unexpected but still very disappointing. The Stenhousemuir Chairman's statement explained very well why having an inquiry was so important. If the various allegations are founded in fact then it is clearly important they are brought out into the open and dealt with. If an independent inquiry found that the allegations were largely baseless then those making the allegations would need to start toeing the line. Either way, the outcome clears the air and allows the organisation to move on. So surely an inquiry should have been welcomed both by those who think the SPFL are doing a good job and those who do not. It seems those who have supported an inquiry are largely clubs who have been publicly critical of the SPFL. These are the clubs who are willing to put their side of things to an independent arbiter. Those who have been supportive of the SPFL position seem unwilling to have the allegations put to independent scrutiny. There really is only one conclusion that you can draw from that! It is all very well saying that we now need to draw a line under this and work together, but the best opportunity for that was for all to accept the conclusions of an independent inquiry. Working together in an organisation where the leadership clearly adopts a bullying culture of divide and rule and where nobody can trust anybody else will not be easy. Directors and staff from other clubs will have moaned about the SPFL in private and will have pledged their support, but then been too gutless to act. How on earth are you supposed to work constructively in that kind of environment? No doubt the club will put out another statement, but it does now need to accept the decision of the majority of member clubs and focus on the season ahead.

Not only are our club rightly incensed by the Record article, I imagine that McArthur is non too pleased either. The Record states "But McArthur hit back when he released a statement of his own on Dunfermline’s official website, rejecting Gardiner’s claims and giving details of a counter proposal to null and void the league." and "Details of Gardiner’s plan only emerged as a group of Championship clubs threw their weight behind a statement from Dunfermline chairman Ross McArthur - in which he mentions for the first time a proposal to have the Scottish season wiped from the record books." At no point in his statement did McArthur claim that ICTFC had any such plan! The point McArthur was making was that if the clubs rejected the SPFL motion and then the alternative one proposed by Rangers, Hearts and ICT, then we could be left in the null and void scenario. It was not an inevitability though. It would only have happened if the SPFL failed to get agreement on alternatives. My understanding is that the null and void scenario was one our club was keen to avoid and, far from us proposing it, it was the SPFL which was using it to threaten clubs to vote for their motion!

It is remarkable how little is actually said in McArthur's statement beyond a bit of self-indulgent, indignant bluster. He limits himself to the allegation of threats and says that all he was doing was pointing out that if the SPFL failed and the Rangers' motion was subsequently put and failed, that distribution of Championship prize money might be dived into 10 equal portions. He ignores the fact that Inverness would be the 2nd biggest loser in that scenario and therefore stood to benefit more than most from supporting the SPFL motion. He ignores the fact that the "consequences" he mentions would only become reality if the SPFL chose to make them so, and therefore fails to understated why this was rightly seen as a "threat" rather than merely unavoidable "consequences". McArthur concludes " There are many more things I would like to say, but I will retain my dignity and continue to be more concerned about the long term future of Scottish football at this time. The endless point scoring is becoming tiresome, and I would have preferred to rise above it, but I have a duty to protect the reputation of Dunfermline Athletic FC." What gutless, pompous cr*p! Hiding behind his role as Pars Chairman allows him to squirm out of answering a range of valid concerns raised in the ICT statement. As a member of the SPFL Board he also has a duty to the the other 41 member clubs and to the wider reputation of Scottish football. That is a duty he is abjectly failing in.