Former Chairman pledges to do everything he can to save Inverness Caley from administration

The former chairman of Inverness Caledonian Thistle has pledged to do everything he can to save the club from administration, but admits it will be a huge challenge.

Alan Savage, who was chairman of the Highland side between 2006 and 2008 when they were in the top flight says he has investors lined up and ready to go.

Earlier this week Inverness revealed they had scrapped a takeover plan and brought in Savage in a bid to turn around their financial fortunes.

Scot Gardiner has left his role as chief executive of League One club, whose financial position has deteriorated further after they were relegated from the William Hill Championship.

Speaking on Wednesday he said: “The board, and Panos Thomas as the interim chairman, reached out for advice on how best to put the club into a position where it could be sold on to someone who could take the club forward in a much quicker way than it could be under the condition it was in.

“There are two aspects, one is the balance sheet and to check what the level of that is.”

“The second aspect is too look at the profit and loss, and to have a look at the people who we owe money to, I’ve started to look at that and, of course, the Inland Revenue are owed money and lots of suppliers to probably around £700,000 so it’s a big job to assimilate it all.

“The main obstacle was the CEO not liaising with the board properly to give them the information that they needed to run the club properly.

“My driver in the position that I am in is to the football club, and we are focused on beating Montrose on Saturday.

“The football club needs to stick to football and the mission is to get it on an even keel so it can be sold on, and we have a couple of opportunities including a Portuguese company who has just bought Monza and have a plan to buy a club in England and a club in Scotland.

“There are also some Chinese investors who could possibly invest in the club

“Inverness is an attractive position but it needs to have a strong balance sheet and no debt.

“It can’t get any worse, because I am in full control of the cheque book now and Charlie Christie, who knows the club intimately, is the CEO and he knows what the problems have been so we have come together and we are going to control the costs.”