Inverness Caley Thistle chairman Ross Morrison says ‘I get that people are p****d off’
If Inverness Caledonian Thistle supporters boycott season tickets the chairman Ross Morrison says the club would “go bust” in what is a stark warning ahead of tonight’s supporters trust meeting.
Speaking exclusively to the Inverness Courier, Mr Morrison said: “I get that people are p****d off because they didn’t want this to happen and it looks bad but is it bad? Is it really that bad? Is it a complete disconnect with Inverness? I don’t think it is.”
• Part one of the interview with Mr Morrison: ICT chairman says ‘I would stand down tomorrow’ if it helped the club
He also confirmed that he is “hopeful” that negotiations with an Inverness-based business to save the academy will be successful – another move that could save the club an estimated around £100,000 a year.
And following the rejected bid for a battery storage farm earlier this year, Mr Morrison said the club would not have considered moving training to Fife if it had gone ahead while clarifying that he and others have taken control of ICT Battery Storage Ltd to pump £250,000 into the club.
Here is the second and final part of the interview with Ross Morrison, for the first part click here.
Q: Supporters are gathering for an emergency meeting to discuss a protest strategy – they want to reverse the club’s decision, is there any chance of that?
If someone comes up with an idea of how we can survive then yes – but unless a white knight comes along how we can turn it around. It makes financial sense and it makes football sense.
If the supporters do take action at what point does the decision to move training become almost terminal for the club, a point you could reach whereby the decision could work for the club but something about the club is lost?
Well, if the supporters don’t support the club then the club goes out of business. If we don’t get the season ticket money then we cannot pay the wages, if we cannot pay the wages then the club goes bust.
Q: That was my next question, what damage would a season ticket boycott do to the club? That is one possible tactics they are planning – you are saying the club would go bust?
I would say we are in a very tricky financial situation if the supporters trust were to recommend a season ticket holder boycott.
Q: If you could sit down, one to one, with every supporter what would be your message to them right now?
I would say, look at the bigger picture, look at the situation we are in, we need to rebuild, we have to do something – if we do nothing, if we are not proactive then we are finished.
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I think we have got a real problem here, this was a good idea when we were in the Championship, it is vital that we do it now. We could not be full-time in Inverness and if we go part-time then who do we get? Because nobody is going to travel to do part-time football from the Central Belt or from a huge distance for Caley Thistle, and that is a real worry.
Could we survive in the first division? Maybe. What I am saying is that the decision has to be made at a reasonable speed to help us in the situation we are in for the coming season, the summer transfer window.
But again in the summer transfer window you get X-amount you are offering a player to stay in a house, you don’t have to move up to Inverness and be away from your family, then you have a happier player.
The other thing is that Kelty have very good quality 3G [a synthetic surface]. I think the majority of pitches in the first division are 3G and they have also got grass pitches – it is a better facility than we have at Fort George.
Q: The ICT Supporters’ Trust feels there is a risk that with the move the club will be “completely disconnected” from the local community?
It will just mean a longer journey. Our players are not on call five days a week, 12 hours a day to go and do stuff. They do things with the community trust, they drop in now and again to support the kids – that is not going to change, it is not going to stop completely. But it might have to be arranged rather than then coming in off the cuff occasionally.
It is like [people think] we are never going to be in Inverness again. That is not what is going to happen but this move I just desperately don’t want to happen but I think it is just going to have to happen because it makes sense.
I have spoken to people in football, I spoke to an ex-chairman this morning and he told me ‘what a brilliant idea, whose idea was that?’ And I told him: ‘unfortunately it wasn’t mine.’ But they could see exactly where we are coming from.
If you can get players up there in Kelty who are happy being there, players are like three hours a day for training and then they are happy because then they go home.
I get that people are p**sed off because they didn’t want this to happen and it looks bad but is it bad? Is it really that bad? Is it a complete disconnect with Inverness? I don’t think it is.
What is the distance that is acceptable? What if we had a fantastic site in Elgin? What about Aberdeen, you could use Cormack park, that is fantastic – would that be horrendous? Some of the things that people are saying on social media – there is an answer: give us half a million quid, if we could raise £500,000 which is enough to attract players up the road and we could house them but we don’t have it.
Q: What is the status of the academy and what is the pathway to the first team?
There is an absolute path into the first team from the academy. Scott Kellacher is right behind it. We are in negotiations with an Inverness-based business which said they would sponsor and look after the academy for us so it takes the burden off us.
The academy costs not far off £100,000 a year to keep the academy in its present form running and, like I say, we are in negotiations right now with an Inverness-based company. We are very hopeful, very hopeful.
So that is positive. One thing that I have to say is that when we announced that we couldn’t keep the academy going I thought people would be howling – but nobody did.
I think that is more important than the first team training down in Kelty, an absolute professional academy, in the Highlands that goes and plays professional academy teams down south – that is massively important.
I think to keep that going is extremely important for the club, the community and the boys that are in the academy now but nobody seemed to be bothered about that and to be honest I didn’t think that the training move would bother people so much.
Q: If the battery farm decision was overturned could you revisit the decision or would that just recreate the same problems?
If we didn’t have the decision overturned by the council then we wouldn’t be doing this [move to Kelty].
Q: ICT BATTERY STORAGE LIMITED – there seems to have been changes there lately, can you define what they are?
We have had to raise money so we have had to shift it out of the club – we have bought it for £250,000. So we have taken it under ownership and if we get the planning overturned then the club will just invoice us the profit. But we needed cash because we had no money.
Q: This was one of the mechanisms to raise money?
We had to raise money.
