Opinion: Cooperation agreement between Caley Thistle and Celtic could be a perfect fit
The chief executive Charlie Christie, dad of ex-Celtic and current Scotland midfielder Ryan, also played for the Hoops.
As did Inverness head coach Scott Kellacher, who learned much from another ex-Celtic player, John Hughes, when he worked as a coach beside the man who led Inverness to Scottish Cup glory in 2015.
Kellacher is a long-time coach and former assistant manager, now in the role quicker than he ever could have imagined due to administration leading him to replace Duncan Ferguson last October.
Scottish champions Celtic have always put much stock on the way they set out to entertain.
That's a main reason why Kellacher and Christie junior and senior were no doubt lured to Glasgow to play for the Hoops.
As it stands, the Scottish champions and League One club Inverness are weighing up a potential cooperation agreement.
This new Scottish FA-led project came into being this season, allowing players aged 16-21, who are eligible to play for Scotland's national teams, to spend loan time at a lower league club.
Flexibility is built in, with the players permitted to move between their loan and parent clubs during the season, but increasing playing time is the name of the game.
Celtic's professional player pathway chief, Shaun Maloney, made the trip north to discuss the possibility of ICT being a route for the Hoops starlets, although another League One club is also in the frame.
Maloney mentioned the attacking style encouraged by Kellacher was appealing for Celtic – and that's a great compliment to Kellacher, who is helping drive attendances up.
For their 2-0 win against Peterhead this month, 2,078 were in the crowd – well above the League One average of around 800.
While the loan agreement might well happen, ICT are keen to see their own local talent come through and challenge for game time.
We've seen breakthroughs this summer for James Clark, Archie Kerr, Ben Gardiner and Sam Thompson, for example.
Celtic would expect any of their younger players arriving in the Highlands to play competitively.
Inverness, who are aiming for promotion to the Championship this season, must ensure the players are match-ready, to help deliver results.
What is in place already though is a strong bond between Brendan Rodgers' club and the Caley Jags.
Highly-rated Celtic B captain defender Mitchell Robertson, 20, is already at ICT on a season-long loan and his first start came in last week's 4-1 KDM Evolution Trophy win at Elgin City.
Last term, with the club in administration and battling to overcome a 15-point deduction, a selection crisis was helped by Celtic with two emergency loan moves for goalkeepers Aidan Rice then Marcus Gill.
One such example of the agreement sees Aberdeen loan players to League Two club Elgin City, with 17-year-old defensive trio Dylan Ross, Jamie Mercer and Noah McDonnell all on board for this season in Moray.
Whether the cooperation agreement between Caley Thistle and Celtic comes to fruition remains to be seen but the links and respect between the two clubs could help Inverness as they seek to progress on and off the pitch.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Record
2 minutes ago
- Daily Record
Celtic are 'bankrupt' where it counts as Champions League faceplant riles up Hotline against transfer chiefs
Anthony Evans took your calls as punters piled in on the Hoops hierarchy Brendan Rodgers has done well to keep a lid on his feelings around Celtic 's lack of spending in the transfer market this summer. But the same cannot be said for Hoops fans, who aimed chants of 'sack the board' at Parkhead chiefs in Wednesday night's 0-0 home draw with Kairat Almaty that has left Rodgers ' team with some work to do if they want to reach the Champions League proper. And that ill-feeling has spilled over onto the Hotline, with owner Dermot Desmond and CEO Michael Nicholson coming under more scrutiny for their alleged lack of ambition. Paul McCormack, Coatbridge, wrote: "Rich in pound notes but bankrupt in ambition. What an awful job the decision makers have made in this transfer window yet again. They deserve every bit of the roasting they will get from fans who deserve so much better than these bed wetters in suits deliver annually." In a similar vein, Billy Barry, Dundee, added: "Now this is not a knee-jerk reaction from me, just to be clear on that, but what the hell is going on at Celtic? Ok, I understand that the board have got to be prudent financially, but that display against Kairat Almaty was, let's be honest, it was shocking! "A lot of Celtic fans were laughing at Rangers for only having one shot on target against Club Brugge, did Celtic do any better? Where is the money from last season's Champions League campaign, the £18million for Kuhn, the reported £8million for Kyogo, and going back even further, the £25million for Matt O'Reilly, etc, etc, etc? "Nine players have come in during the close season, with the highest paid for a player being £1.5 million for Nygren. Unless the Celtic board release the funds Brendan Rodgers desperately needs for genuine quality players, Celtic will struggle in the Champions League, or god forbid, the Europa League." Kenneth Wilson also called to say: "A woeful clueless performance from Celtic hardly creating a chance all night and quite easily could've lost the game. A tough task lies await in the second leg and how the board can't see that the squad needs serious investment is beyond me. They should hang their heads in shame because there is every chance it will cost them a place in the Champions League." However, other Hotline callers insist boss Rodgers also has to share some of the blame for persisting with last summer's £9million signing Adam Idah. Gus Murphy, Bellshill, said: "Brendan Rodgers has been excellent since he returned to Celtic for a second stint as manager. However it's the old story of trying to prove you made a good signing when you have not Adam Idah doesn't and never will have a strikers' natural instinct for goal .He always seems to be a yard early or a yard late and that will not improve with time. When you move Maeda out wide to accommodate Idah, it's a big mistake that has a ripple effect on the whole team. "And after the pre match team talks, the players are starting the game thinking they have 10 men and a a non-striker on the park. Not good. Brendan, you need to be the bigger man and admit Idah was a mistake as he is not a natural striker and never will be and move on. Hopefully he will then will regain the full respect and support of the Celtic fans." David Bryce, commented: "Yes the Celtic board are suffocating our great club and are an absolute disgrace. However, Rodgers has to cop a lot of flak also regarding the horrid performance against Kairat. His tactics are absolutely awful and the style is horrendous. The sooner he leaves the better, he has made Celtic utterly terrible to watch. Spare me the elite manager nonsense, he should have been sacked after the Scottish Cup final." Things aren't too rosy on the other side of Glasgow at the moment, with Russell Martin failing to win over Rangers fans. The Light Blues hopes of progressing to the Champions League big time have been left hanging by a thread following their 3-1 first leg play-off defeat to Club Brugge at Ibrox but Robert Livingstone, Palm Beach, is convinced that Andrew Cavenagh and 49ers Enterprises will give him the whole season to transform the club's fortunes. He wrote: "Realistically, whatever happens over the next three games - even if the results are not good - it's unlikely Martin will be sacked. American owners don't work that way by paying contracts out after a few weeks when there are three years are still remaining. "They could leave him in place untill end of season then pull trigger if things don't improve. What these owners don't understand and probably never will is that in Glasgow, Old Firm managers live and die by results. It doesn't happen to the same extent in American sport where massive contract payments are the norm, such as in the NFL, NBL and MLB where they are usually seen out." Melvin Gess reckons Martin's time could be up if they don't get one over Celtic in the first Old Firm derby clash of the season on August 31. He added: "Hello Sports Hotline, please forgive the lack of brevity but I have waited a very long time before contacting you. "I have supported Rangers all my life. I proudly had their name tattooed on my arm over 50 years ago and have had plenty of good and not so good memories. The Souness and Smith years were heaven sent but we now it feels we are descending into the seventh circle of hell. "I believe every new manager deserves our full support and be given enough time to implement their strategies and philosophy. However, as much as I want Russell Martin to succeed, I am starting to think his tactics belong in the world of fantasy football. Decent sides will now how to exploit our tactical deficiencies. "In his interviews his favourite line is he wants to see his players to run. Maybe after the Celtic game he may have to run back down south!"
Daily Record
2 minutes ago
- Daily Record
Celtic fans waving season books at Nicholson and Lawwell are right to be raging because they've seen this movie before
The Hoops will head to Kazakhstan with their European hopes in the balance following the first leg draw with Kairat Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you. Fool me more than 10 times – that's just shameful all round. There will be plenty of Celtic fans feeling a bit foolish right now for thinking their team had more than enough to be heading to Kazakhstan next week with a healthy lead and one foot in the Champions League. But those punters fell for it all again. Instead, Celtic are heading 3,500 miles across the world with their backside hanging out once more. Brendan Rodgers' side might pull this one out of the fire. The tie is at 0-0 and Kairat looked nothing more than a big, solid, well organised outfit. The odds are heavily stacked against them. No Scottish side has ever won in Kazakhstan and the logistics of it all means teams are practically two down before a ball is kicked. So here we are again with Celtic. On the verge of a Champions League calamity. And while some might have been fooled into believing it'll all turn out okay in the end, plenty have been seeing the warning signs – because they've been trapped in this movie before. No wonder the board copped it. At one stage an angry punter marched up to the edge of the press box, waving his season ticket book at Michael Nicholson and Peter Lawwell. It probably cost the guts of 800 quid and the irony was his match brief for Wednesday would have cost an extra 30 bucks at least. It won't have been nice for the chief exec and chairman to get an ear bashing – but the guy had a right to be raging. As a club Celtic act like these qualifiers have been hiding in a cupboard before hopping out with a scare mask on in the middle of the night. Yet every single time they scream the place down and jump out of their jammies. You could try to write off Wednesday night as some kind of bad day at the office but it would be wilful blindness. Celtic are serial offenders when it comes to being ill-prepared for these crucial showdowns. Get this. Celts have faced 18 of these do-or-die shootouts to get to the Champions League group stages. They've lost 11 of them. Eleven. They've scraped through in seven. Take out Arsenal a few years back and the rest aren't exactly a who's who of European football. More like a who's that? Artmedia, Maribor, Malmo, Cluj, Ferencvaros, Midtjylland were all disasters. Failure in Almaty on Tuesday would be the worst of the lot. And the worst thing for Celtic fans is that it's all self-inflicted. They regularly collapse at these staging posts because they haven't been prepared. Even the ones they did survive, like Be'er Sheva and Astana, was in spite of the business done rather than because of it, stumbling into the groups with cobbled together defences and names that are never seen again once the transfer window shuts. Celtic have had practically a free run at the Champions League for 15 years and yet done precious little with it. Fans are raging this week because they know all this. They've seen it all before. They've been screaming for signings for months because they knew trouble was coming down the pipeline. Rodgers has been practically begging for help in recent weeks. He's been like a hostage holding up a copy of the day's newspaper and asking folk to sense the ransom. Listen, the performance in the first 45 minutes against Kairat wasn't good enough regardless of the backdrop. There was a £9m striker who spent less time in the box than the Almaty physio. An £11m midfielder who couldn't get a start, along with a £6m defender on the bench. Mistakes have been made by everyone. But take a look at that finishing line up and surely the Celtic board can understand why punters are fuming at being left behind the eight ball again. It was a shambles. There were so many round pegs in square holes it was like closing time at the local nursery. You were half expecting stand-in left back Liam Scales to pull off a mask and reveal it was actually Nir Bitton all along. Chucking on the likes of Yang – who was out the door four weeks ago – and asking him to change the game was embarrassing. Throwing on Shin Yamada – who might be one of the strangest signings in the club's history – on a salvage mission was shocking. No harm to Yamada, but this is a guy who is 25 year-old and has made less than 100 appearances as a pro. That's not a hopeful punt. It's a cry for help. Like Rodgers has been doing. He mentioned going to Rosenborg a few years ago after a 0-0 at Parkhead in the qualifiers. It was a fair point. The first leg of that one Rodgers had no striker with Moussa Dembele injured and Leigh Griffiths suspended. And who played up front? James Forrest. Of course he did. Seven years on he's still the In Case of Emergency Break Glass guy. Except now he's 34 and hasn't started so many games in a row for about five seasons. Hoops fans would laugh if it wasn't so serious. Celtic will do their usual and wait until the last week of the window and then pick up some decent players who are surplus to requirements at fairly high level clubs. It's how they got the likes of Jota, Cameron Carter-Vickers and Matt O'Riley, and it will be enough to make them odds on to retain the title. But it's not a cohesive transfer strategy. It's a blind man at an orgy. They could get out of jail next week but the harsh reality staring them in the face is Celts could be out Champions League could be up the lum by that stage the recruits arrive. And that wouldn't just be foolish – it would be shameful.
Daily Mirror
3 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Ryan Reynolds sent Wrexham dressing room warning as mega-money double deal eyed
Wrexham's big summer spending spree has raised concerns, with two ex-Wales stars warning that too many new signings could spark unrest in the Hollywood-owned club's dressing room Wrexham have been warned that signing too many new players could backfire on them by causing unrest in the dressing room. The Red Dragons have brought in nine new faces so far this summer after gaining promotion to the Championship in April. Manchester City defender Callum Doyle looks set to become the tenth after a deal worth up to £8million was agreed for the highly-rated youngster. Manager Phil Parkinson is still keen for more, though, following a difficult start to life in the second tier and has a healthy warchest funded by club co-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac. Wrexham lost their opening fixture at Southampton 2-1 following a late collapse and were also beaten 3-2 at home by West Brom last weekend. Parkinson made his desire for more arrivals clear in the wake of the most recent defeat, and is now reportedly eyeing a double transfer swoop for two Wales internationals. Liverpool forward Lewis Koumas and Rennes midfielder Jordan James have both been linked with a move to Wrexham in recent days. However, the former Sunderland and Bolton boss has been cautioned that making such a large number of signings is no guarantee of success and could cause disharmony among the squad. The warning was sounded by ex-Wales and Burnley striker Sam Vokes who, speaking on the BBC's Feast of Football podcast, said: "Does he want more players, or more headaches? I saw that comment and I don't know where he can fit them into the squad. "They've lost the opening two and I understand there's a bit of frustration there, but there is a real fine balance of having too many and having an unhappy camp." According to the Liverpool Echo, a significant sum could be required to secure the services of Koumas. It's understood that Liverpool view him as being further along in his development than Bobby Clark, who was sold to RB Salzburg for £10m last summer. Meanwhile, L'Équipe reports that Wrexham have enquired about the availability of former Birmingham player James, with a deal worth around £4.3m claimed to be in the offing. Wrexham's biggest outlay so far during the current transfer window was on luring Ipswich forward Nathan Broadhead to the Racecourse Ground. That deal is reportedly worth an initial £7.5m, but potentially rising to as much as £10m with add-ons. Parkinson tried to downplay the fee paid for Broadhead when questioned last week, joking that it would take Wrexham winning the Premier League and Champions League to hit £10m. But Vokes believes it was a large amount to pay for a player who was in the final year of his contract at Portman Road. "I'm not surprised they've got that much money," he said. "You've only got to see the rise that they've been on. I'm surprised they're willing to spend it, but I hope he proves to be what we hope he is for Wrexham. There's a huge weight on his shoulders with that price tag, he's not had as much football in the last year or so." Iwan Roberts, another former Welsh striker, also chimed in to agree with Vokes, adding: "I think they've paid over the odds for him at £10m. I'm not saying that [it's his fault] at all. Hopefully he can produce the goods and start getting the goals. But I think £10m is a great deal for Ipswich." Join our new WhatsApp community and receive your daily dose of Mirror Football content. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. Sign up to our newsletter! Wrexham is the Game is great new way to get top-class coverage Wrexham AFC is the arguably the fastest-growing club in the world at the moment thanks to a certain Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. The Dragons have achieved two consecutive promotions and are cheered on by crowds from not only North Wales but also from all over the globe, thanks to the success of the Disney+ documentary 'Welcome to Wrexham'. But does it have a dedicated, quality source of information piped through to your inbox each week, free of ads but packed with informed opinion, analysis and even a little bit of fun each week? That's where Wrexham is the Game steps in... Available every Wednesday, it provides all the insights you need to be a top red. And for a limited time, a subscription to 'Wrexham is the Game' will cost fans just £15 for the first year.
