we need to keep our players

[MissICT]

caley relay need to focus on not giving in to bigger clubs buy giving them our star players.

How come when ever caley get a good player some big *** team like Celtic pay loads and they don't even play them. the player's say they are going to get better chances but they aren't because they will be sitting on the bench. They only buy them because they see them as a threat.

what do you caley fans think??

[ElderBoy]

they get more money and a chance to play for a bigger team unless their really good then they will rarely play for the teams they signed for i.e mark brown. caley will always be a feeder club unless a billionaire takes over

[Glebeict]

This is one of the reasons that the SPL is not really a competitive league .  The only chance 10 teams have is to finish 3rd.

[tm4tj]

It's a big bad world out there reedee, dawg eat dawg and all that stuff.  It happens to them all, even Rangers and Celtic, they can be bought out by bigger clubs that have the buying power.  It may seem unfair, but it's the way of the world I'm afraid.  For clubs similar to ICT, we will, unfortunately, always have to sell our most promising players at some stage as we will be unlikely to meet wage demands when they improve their status, then, when the big bad man comes knocking at the door, we sell in the equally big bad transfer window, before the players contract runs out and we end up with nothing.  Tying players up on decent contracts is all part of the bigger game, as that is where the money will be made when the time is right to sell on our stars.  I worry about the likes of Black, how much longer can we keep the wolves from the door, and we will only get a good price if he still has some length of contract to run, no matter how good he is.  On the other side of the coin, much as we adore Russelldinho, not many clubs will be breaking down the gates at ICT to spend their pennies, as he is not such a saleable commodity, probably seen as Mr average midfielder and not as youthful as Black either, all of this means he accepts what ICT think he is worth or he moves along if anyone else fancies picking up his wage demands.  Not the end of the world for us if he goes, but we like to keep what we have, family club and all that, however, he could be replaced fairly cheaply methinks, therefore he better be careful with what he thinks he is worth to the club.  Hope that explains a little bit of the wheeling and dealing going on behind the scenes.

[weeStie]

While I agree with Don about the economics of the situation, it doesn't make it any easier to bear.

That Hibs can sell a less than average SPL defender for 1.5 million and then buy from us a better than average SPL midfielder for 110,000 it angers me.  But we have to accept that in spite of our exalted position as a middle-of-table SPL team, when it comes to income and finance we are lower than the English 2nd (ie. 4th) division.  If you consider that a team relegated from the Premiership gets a compensation package of over 20 million and we'd be lucky to gross that in 5 seasons, it sort of puts thing into perspective.

We won't see any turn round in this situation until our younger supporters grow up and start bringing their kids to ICT instead of breeding OF or Aberdeen supporters.  When we start to see average crowds of over 7500 we just won't have the financial clout.

That bluddy Belgian Bosman has a lot to answer for.