Inverness Caledonian Thistle administrators BDO have received a bid from Alan Savage to take over the club - But he wants an answer by the end of the week
WILL Alan Savage become the new owner of Inverness Caledonian Thistle by the end of this week? At the time of going to press, that question had yet to be answered. When we approached BDO on Monday morning to ask the state of play, the administrators could not confirm if his offer had been accepted or rejected.
What we do know is Savage has given BDO a deadline of Friday to either accept or reject his £800,000 offer, with certain conditions, or he is set to withdraw his bid.
Two weeks ago Savage, who has funded an estimated £1 million to Inverness Caledonian Thistle to keep it going since it went into administration, announced his offer to take over the club and formed a new company called FC Inverness as part of the bid.
His £800,000 offer was conditional, with four stipulations.
They included 100 per cent of the club’s shares being transferred to FC Inverness; all long term loans being written off; all the trade creditors sitting in administration accepting that their debts are settled; and the company PropCo giving a written undertaking to sell its peripheral lease of land, (excluding the triangle) for a price agreed at a meeting last month.
Two weeks ago, BDO said they had reopened talks with “four to five” parties interested in buying the football club after their previous deadline passed with no bids to take over the League One outfit.
There have yet to be any other confirmed bids for the club made public as BDO continue to work to find a solution with someone to get Inverness Caledonian Thistle out of administration.
While Inverness continue to find a way out of its financial issues, the team have made a big step to securing its League One survival next season.
A fantastic 3-0 win against Cove Rangers on Saturday has moved Inverness three points clear of the bottom two with four games remaining in the regular season.
With ninth place Annan Athletic losing last week and sitting 30 goals worse off on goal difference, Saturday’s win has given Inverness their joker card back of at least being allowed to drop points in one match.
Hopefully they won’t have to play that card, and can continue their form from the Balmoral Stadium going forward.
The odds appear to be in Caley Thistle’s favour as they are next set to welcome Kelty Hearts, who were thrashed 6-0 by relegated Dumbarton last weekend, to the Caledonian Stadium.
However, Inverness have been in this situation before, expecting to defeat teams at home only for them to fail to deliver the required results.
You only have to cast your mind back to last month when they lost 1-0 to Annan Athletic and were then held to a draw by Alloa Athletic.
Had Inverness won both of those matches, finishing in the top four would have been an achievable prospect, but to finish outside the bottom two with a 15 point deduction would be an incredible accomplishment regardless.
However, let’s hope Inverness manage to come out of administration and are still in a position to compete next season.
Hopefully a deal can be done sooner rather than later, as the club have said at least 75 per cent of the playing squad are out of contract by the end of the season. The club has to secure its future, before it can look towards it.