Inverness Caledonian Thistle Press Conference
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00:00A lot of people know about the club lacking communication with the fans and all the stakeholders in the club.
00:10And I was brought in a week ago by Panos, the chairman, to try and help him out, to bring some clarity to matters.
00:19And the first thing I realised was obviously got rid of Scott Gardner, which is a major problem for the club.
00:26But I won't go into too much detail on that.
00:30But the other issue was obviously the balance sheet and how to sort out the loans that the previous regime had with the club.
00:43I think it's fair to say that all these guys tried in their own way to move the club forward.
00:49But some of their ideas were quite optimistic and difficult and they didn't come off.
00:57But today they all agreed that they would turn their loans into equity or waive them completely,
01:05which lifts a massive burden off the club and turns the balance sheet around completely.
01:10So I'd like to thank Ross Morrison, David Cameron, Alan Munro, Roddy Ross, Graeme Bennett, Liam Delgarno, George Fraser.
01:21And I've got Graeme Bennett again because he wanted a big mention.
01:25For example, I've spoken to Puma today where we thought we had an onerous agreement to buy kit.
01:32That's all been sorted out.
01:34To Matt and Stephen Bremner today, over the last couple of days,
01:40has said he's going to do some commemorative bottles of whisky for the club to mark their 30 years in existence.
01:47I've spoken to Weldex, Ian and Dougie McGilvery, and they're on board.
01:53Donny from D&E Coaches. So a lot of people are prepared to help.
01:57So I've got the loans out of the way and there's people pledged that they will help this club going forward.
02:04Pillars of the community.
02:06One of the first things I'll be looking at is the creditors and trying to help them out.
02:11I'm not saying everybody's going to get paid immediately,
02:13but certainly we'll be paying people who've had debts with the club for a long, long time.
02:19I'll look at that as a priority and make sure they're OK.
02:27I'm going to put the club on a sound financial footing.
02:32And what that means, we'll meet our obligations as and when they fall due as a going concern.
02:39So that's that. I'm going to bring some order to the club in terms of management systems, get that in order.
02:47And obviously, the other side of the creditors is the debtors.
02:51There's people that owe us money.
02:53And it's simply in terms of people who have had boards up for years and not paid for them.
02:58And there's other people that owe the club money that I'll be trying to get back.
03:04A special thanks, I'll mention, for Charlie Christie, who's agreed to become my CEO while I'm here.
03:13And a special thanks to him. He's got a lot of football experience.
03:17He was my manager when I was the chairman for two years when we broke even
03:23and we finished seventh in the Premier League at our best.
03:26So a special thanks to them.
03:28I've already had a chat with the manager. The manager's coming on board.
03:33He realises, you know, the task I've had.
03:37And I have to go out of my way to say, yesterday I got a phone call.
03:42I got a phone call from Sir Alex Ferguson.
03:47And as Alex, as I know him, he said, you can call me Alex.
03:51This is massive to me, as I mentioned, United fan.
03:54He sang Duncan's praises.
03:57Said he's a great lad and for us to stick with him and he'll turn this club around on the football side.
04:02So that was a big move.
04:04I also asked him, could he have a word with Ten Hag?
04:09Maybe get Guy Natural to play a couple of games for us, which he laughed at.
04:13But he said he's going to help us, which is very, very important.
04:16And he may even come to a game. So that's all good news.
04:20Obviously, I'm looking at local businesses to help me turn things around.
04:24I've already mentioned two major ones, three major ones.
04:28And I'm expecting Don Lawson of Johnny Foxes.
04:34He's going to become our clubs and pubs partner.
04:38He doesn't know yet, but I think he will be.
04:41So we're going to appeal to the community, the fans to get behind the club.
04:46And the mission is to win our next game and to get promotion.
04:51And once we've got the club in complete order and I'm happy with it,
04:56we're going to go out to the market and the mission is to sell the club.
05:02And I've got Gordon Ritchie of GRM who's here today.
05:06He's going to help me do that. He's got some perspectives lined up.
05:10And basically, I want to have an open and honest relationship with the fans,
05:15with everybody, all the stakeholders, and get rid of this cloud
05:19that's been hanging over the club. Thank you.
05:23Any questions?
05:24Yes, please. Could I ask Alan?
05:27Ross Morrison, the previous chairman, was mentioned by you there.
05:31My understanding is that he was owed 2.2 million or somewhere in the region of that.
05:37Can you talk about his coming on board in terms of this new-
05:42Yeah, he came today to the meeting at 11 o'clock.
05:45He expressed he's a big fan of the club.
05:48He's got the tattoo. I think he's told people that.
05:51He's going to come to games in the future. It's all straightened out.
05:54He couldn't be more cooperative.
05:56Him and David Cameron have got some good ideas about the property
06:00and the years-old discussion about who owns the car parks, etc.
06:05And it's all going to work out good.
06:07We've got a written, minuted meeting, and we all know where we stand.
06:11So I'm trying to bring clarity and all the stakeholders on board.
06:15I thank Ross initially, and Ross did us a good turn today.
06:20In that spirit, I understand that he had security on the car parks and the two stands.
06:26I think there's technicalities there.
06:28If you ask me about employment agencies, I'm brilliant.
06:32But on property, I'm not very good.
06:34No, that's fine.
06:36Just as a layman, can you clarify the difference between loans and creditors?
06:42I'm not a business person.
06:46The loans, I'd call it historic debt.
06:49It's big.
06:50But creditors are people like Red Poppy who want to get paid.
06:54They've been very understanding.
06:56Puma have been very great.
06:58Great chat with Puma this morning.
07:00I think people realise what I'm trying to do.
07:03They buy into it.
07:05And we'll be paying people this week.
07:07And it's coming out of my own pocket.
07:10But hopefully, Dougie McGillivray and Ima Gillivray of Weldex will have Weldex signs up all around the stadium.
07:16And we'll get some initiatives that they promised to help me out with.
07:19Tomat and Ise are going to do some commemorative whisky.
07:23And Stephen Remner has offered to pay me £50,000 before he sold it.
07:28So I got Joe from Aradja to sponsor the game on Saturday.
07:32He never goes to football.
07:34So he's done it for me.
07:35And I think I can pull a few favours in.
07:38I'm hoping Alex, my new best mate, will help me too.
07:43And you know we love a soundbite.
07:45Is there a way of summing it up?
07:46Is it a clean slate for the club?
07:48How would you categorise what's happened in the last 12 hours?
07:53I think the club's won a watch.
07:55Sorry?
07:56I think the club's won a watch.
07:58Okay.
08:02Any other questions?
08:04I'm happy we can get one-to-one, that'd be great.