Inverness Caledonian Thistle cut losses by 70 per cent as future looks 'promising' according to chairman at AGM
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Inverness Caledonian Thistle held their AGM for the year ending May 31, 2020, and it showed some positive progress being made by the club financially.
Trimming the fat in budgets has been the key focus of the current board in an attempt to make the club sustainable, and they took a big step forward with losses being cut by 70 per cent.
The report only covered the first few months of the pandemic, so does not take into account playing the shortened 2020/21 season in largely empty stadia, but the club's losses were reduced from £892,000 in the 2018/19 season to £263,000 for the 2019/20 campaign.
With the 2019/20 season coming to an abrupt end, it is no surprise that the club's total attendance dropped by over 30,000 and overall turnover dropped by 11.4 per cent, however revenue from retail increased by 20 per cent.
Part of that stemmed from ICT's new kit deal with Puma which saw sales of home and away kits reach record heights, helping the club reach their annual retail target within five months of going on sale.
Club chairman Ross Morrison also confirmed that part of the £50,000 donation all SPFL clubs received from benefactor James Anderson was used to upgrade Caley Thistle's IT systems, which both allowed the club to continue operating remotely and led to signing up an official IT partner: Converged.
Morrison's chairman's report touched on the club's pay-per view offering last season, originally intended to be for just three matches but eventually covering the entire campaign, commenting that "I truly believe that had we known this at the beginning of the voting process in the summer, clubs may very well have not voted to play at all.
"The costs of putting on matches for no fans while paying everyone and all expenses was onerous in the extreme without any revenue."
Another blow to the club came with the cancellation of potentially lucrative concerts that were due to be held at the Caledonian Stadium last year.
However, the Caley Jags have pushed ahead with the formation of an ICT Concert Company, who will look to put the stadium on the map as a music venue.
That is not the only development involving the Caledonian Stadium, as Morrison revealed the club have marketed naming rights for the stadium both locally and internationally as part of their plan to maximise potential revenue.
Generally speaking, considering the predicament clubs were faced with as the pandemic began to take effect in Scottish football, the chairman's report is optimistic, saying the board are pleased with the progress already made towards their goals, holding steadfast in their belief that the club is moving in the right direction and even describing the future outlook as promising and bright for Caley Thistle – which will be music to fans' ears after the scale of previous losses put the club's future in serious doubt.
