Caley Thistle fan fears as club faces administration

Relegation is financially dangerous. Income plummets. Spending does not. Any newly-relegated club will hold on to the players and other staff that directors think necessary for promotion next season.

Inverness Caledonian Thistle has experience of the top flight and cup success, and it aspires to return there. So its move down a tier of Scottish football creates a big mismatch between income and expectation.

It has been trying out innovative solutions to boost its financial position. Two of them using its land, linked to the renewable energy boom that is coming to the Highland capital, have not come off.

So calling in an ‘insolvency practitioner’ – an administrator – is prudent financial planning, when a new investor is being sought to avert the club’s financial collapse. That accountant can help get to a deal with such an investor, or perhaps arrange a pre-pack deal, in which the club enters administration and the assets are immediately taken on by a new company while creditors lose out.

What makes Caley Thistle’s woes interesting beyond football is what it says about flexibility in the jobs market. There’s a cost to players, managers and their families of moving between clubs. Caley Thistle’s move to train in Fife – now abandoned – reflected the difficulty of recruiting players out of the central belt and requiring them to move to the Highlands.

League One clubs cannot afford big pay packets to make that move worthwhile. Buying a home can carry big costs, including tax, when contracts can be short and managers fickle. Finding a home to rent in and around Inverness is very difficult, and this is at a time when that energy sector is gearing up for big expansion and many more jobs.