Mason foresees no roadblock to start of season for Inverness Caledonian Thistle Women
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Inverness Caledonian Thistle Women's manager Karen Mason expects to start the season as planned on Sunday, February 9.
The re-structuring of the football pyramid in the Scottish women's game meant that clubs looking to continue in the competitive pathway had to submit new applications.
That deadline was last Friday, and although Scottish Women's Football have said there are adjustments needed to the Inverness application, Mason believes that will be an on-going process.
"There are a few things that need a little bit of adjustment to what they're looking for, but there's no sign that if we don't get it done, we're not welcome," she explained.
"It seems to be an on-going process.
"There are things like a development plan that they're looking for, how we'll sustain the team given that we don't have a recognised youth pathway, so there are a few bits of paperwork that need to be caught up with in that sense.
"We might set up a third team of under-15s. Whether that's the community side of Caley Thistle rather than the actual youth academy, that's something that I'm hoping to try and establish this year with the Community Trust.
"That's the main thing at the moment, there's nothing else that has come back that's ringing alarm bells, so hopefully if we get that done we should be accepted.
"They can't be pushing the deadline further and further on without hearing anything about it. I assume we will be starting the season as expected on Sunday, February 9."
For the time being, preparations for the new season will continue as normal for Mason, starting with a friendly next weekend against Aberdeen at Cormack Park.
After a scheduled match against Clachnacuddin fell through earlier this month, there is also a chance another game will be added to Caley Thistle's fixture list before competitive games restart.
"We will possibly have St Johnstone coming up on Sunday, February 2 to face us at home," Mason said.
"But that's down to logistics at the moment and whether they can make it or not.
"If that doesn't happen then it will just be a bounce game amongst the squad, there are enough of us to do that. We'll get a couple of 90 minutes under the belt hopefully from doing that."
