The news about Caley Thistle’s accounts caused a few jaws to drop in astonishment last week.
While the club has been doing its best to reassure fans there is no cause for alarm you don’t need to be a chartered accountant to realise that a loss of over £800,000 for a Championship club is far from an ideal situation.
Yet in this league if you have a full time squad, a youth programme and a women’s team while living with Championship crowds, very little TV money, no player to sell for big money and not getting to the latter stages of the Scottish Cup or League Cup then nobody should be surprised at a loss like this.
What can Caley Thistle do?
🙌Our goals from yesterday's 2-1 win against Ayr United
Sean Welsh & Jay Henderson on the scoresheet yesterday to secure a big three points!
— Inverness Caledonian Thistle FC (@ICTFC) March 5, 2023
What else can Caley Thistle do?
The club will feel they can’t get back to the Premiership if they scale back on expenditure and that’s probably correct.
Yet, you can’t carry on losing money like this year after year.
This, however, is Scottish football in 2023, and while many people say positive things about football in the Championship, it’s an existence that most clubs there don’t want to be part of.
Reasonable chance against Kilmarnock
So, a win against Kilmarnock on Friday would be very helpful indeed.
The money that would come from a Hampden semi-final would be very useful. It would far from solve ICT’s financial woes but it would help a bit.
Saturday’s win at Somerset Park sets Caley Thistle up nicely for this tie.
Against a Killie side who really struggle on the road, Caley Thistle have to feel they have at least a reasonable chance of getting to the last four.
My gut feeling is it could be a long evening with extra time and, perhaps, penalties very likely.
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