Caley Thistle players and coaches “dreaded” seeing Scot Gardiner during the former chief executive’s five-year stint with the club, it has been claimed.
Fans were outraged at the end of last season when several club stalwarts left without being informed their contracts would not be renewed or given any thanks for their service.
The Press and Journal has been told by several sources that distrust between the players and coaches and the ex-chief executive was sown long before that.
This is the second part of a three-part series looking into the leadership of Gardiner.
It will cover his relationships with players and staff, as well as the failed takeover bid of Ketan Makwana.
Gardiner’s responses to the many criticisms made of him are included throughout the story.
Players reveal difficult atmosphere under Gardiner
Several former members of Caley Thistle’s playing and coaching staff have told The Press and Journal they did not enjoy a good relationship with Gardiner.
In part one, staff claimed that they found 28,000 unread emails in the former chief executive’s inbox when he left the club.
One ex-employee, an ICT legend with years of service with the club under his belt, said: “He was given free rein to just do as he pleased.
“I’m not surprised to hear he had thousands of unread emails because trying to get anything organised with him was impossible.
“I didn’t have a good impression of him right from the start. I remember listening to him spouting nonsense, name-dropping left, right and centre and just thinking ‘nah, you’re not for me’.”
Another ex-colleague said Gardiner was “the worst person he’d ever worked with”.
He added: “The players dreaded seeing him.
“I’ve been in football for a long time. I haven’t come across anyone quite like Scot Gardiner and I hope I never will again.”
A third recalled Gardiner inviting players over to speak to him so he could tell them about his grand plans.
The player said: “It was all about him. Everything that was good about the club, he wanted people to know it was coming from him.
“He’d call people over and show us stuff on laptops. We didn’t really care, we just wanted to get out and play football and he’s showing us 3D models of a hotel.
“People just thought it was weird and a bit far-fetched.”
Gardiner accuses Inverness colleagues of ‘backstabbing’
Gardiner said he was “proud” of his football career and has “the friends and respect to show for it”.
He added: “I take no interest in the views of disgruntled people who ultimately failed at their jobs.
“I too have been in the game a long time, 30 years in fact, and you find there is very little loyalty or warm feelings from those you have not offered new contracts to or had to sack at the insistence of the board of directors.
“It is the nature of the game and sadly backstabbing is a reflection of someone’s character and upbringing.
“But it’s not how I like to behave and certainly not in public even if asked.”
Former chairman Ross Morrison was asked if he had any regrets about sticking with Gardiner through the club’s turbulent period.
He said: “We kept it going for five and a half years. What does that say?
“I think he was very good at his job. Listen, Scot Gardiner could be a big pain in the arse, but he was the best I could find.
“And if we didn’t like him that much, we could’ve got rid of him.”
Gardiner’s conduct was also criticised by another former member of staff who worked with him closely behind the scenes.
The worker recalled a meeting between him, Gardiner and another younger employee.
Gardiner was critical of the younger employee’s performance and there was a heated exchange.
In a written statement, Gardiner later accused him of “aggressively” slamming the table and unleashing a tirade of abuse.
According to the other two people present at the meeting, the former chief executive completely misrepresented the situation.
Gardiner responded to the allegation: “This is just utter nonsense and malicious and defamatory. Other witnesses also completely opposed these lies in writing.”
Gardiner’s own account states there were only three people in the meeting: him and the two people who dispute his version of events.
Inverness contract woes
Numerous Caley Thistle players and staff were left in limbo at the end of the 2023-24 season.
Fans were particularly disillusioned at the poor treatment of long-serving players like Aaron Doran and Mark Ridgers.
Doran, a Scottish Cup winner in 2015 who spent 13 years with the club, was particularly hard done by.
He had previously been assured by Gardiner that Caley Thistle would pay for a knee operation he needed.
But the former chief executive never returned any of his calls or texts and it never happened.
Ultimately, fans and former teammates of Doran had to step in.
There was further damage to Caley Thistle’s reputation when it emerged they hadn’t paid loan fees due to Ross County or Dundee FC.
The money was owed for deals involving striker Alex Samuel and full-back Cammy Kerr.
A former colleague said they had raised concerns about the club’s transfer policy with Gardiner.
The source said: “I questioned him about the sense of filling the squad with loan players rather than promoting our better academy players.
“He stated that these players were coming up north for ‘game time’ and were not costing anything.
“Months later numerous invoices were still unpaid from the parent clubs of these players.”
Scot Gardiner claims he ‘packed the squad with academy players’
Gardiner did not explain why the loan fees went unpaid. He dismissed the comments as “made-up nonsense by someone with a grudge”.
He added: “It is just a bare-faced lie to say I said any player was coming for nothing. It is also ironic that before I resigned and subsequently left the club this season, I packed the squad with young academy players.
“And since the academy director Charlie Christie became CEO, he has signed two players and both are on loan.”
Seven loan players featured in Caley Thistle’s relegation decider against Hamilton in May.
Former club captain Stuart Golabek said at the time he felt there was too much reliance on loans.
He added that successful ICT teams of the past had far more stability.
‘Caley Thistle could easily disappear’
Off the pitch in June, the summer of discontent continued when a deal with Norwegian firm Statkraft collapsed.
They had been planning to run a park-and-ride from the Caledonian Stadium’s car park during construction of a hydro scheme.
This was thought to be worth between £1.4m and £1.7m to the club.
That proved to be the last straw for Ross Morrison, who resigned as chairman.
Gardiner handed in his resignation too, but he didn’t leave the club.
In an email to board members, he said his focus was now “to find a new owner to save the club from administration/liquidation”.
His preferred candidate was Ketan Makwana.
Gardiner assured the board that an offer from Makwana’s Seventy7 Ventures company was “entirely solid”.
He noted to members his role in deals to buy and sell Dundee FC and Hearts.
Gardiner also warned them they needed swift action or else the club could go bust.
He said: “I believe that complete integrity, professionalism, swift action and good faith by everyone in this process is now required because the creditors have caught up with us.
“The league will no doubt sanction us in the next few days. ICT could easily disappear or be non-viable for any prospective buyer before the league starts in August.”
‘Fantasist’ Makwana was endorsed by Scot Gardiner
Makwana had been dubbed a “potential saviour” in a report about his plans for the club.
But supporters saw numerous red flags as soon as Caley Thistle put out a statement saying he was poised to become the club’s new majority shareholder.
A club insider told The Press and Journal: “The lack of transparency was the most common and alarming aspect of Scot Gardiner.
“The uncertainty and distrust of his statements led to a complete loss of faith about the veracity of them by all the directors.
“During the process [with Seventy7 Ventures], he made countless manipulative actions and false representations to the board.”
In addition to the £2.5m deal to take control of 50.1% of the club’s shares, Gardiner told the board Makwana would deposit between £800,000 and £900,000 in the club’s accounts within his first month of ownership.
He called this his “clear gesture of intent”.
But the board was never shown any evidence of Makwana or Seventy7 Ventures having access to the level of finance needed to complete the deal.
‘Special adviser’ Ketan Makwana
Gardiner also repeated Makwana’s claim to the ICT board that he served as a special adviser for former Prime Minister David Cameron.
An investigation by The Press and Journal found that Makwana had failed to deliver on numerous promises in the past.
He had also been dubbed a “fantasist” by people who’d worked with him.
Numerous inconsistencies among the claims Makwana made about himself on LinkedIn were also uncovered.
Several sources close to Lord Cameron said they had never heard of Makwana. They assured this newspaper he had never been a special adviser.
Makwana quietly edited his LinkedIn bio to remove any mention of being a “special adviser” in the wake of our story.
Can Caley Thistle survive the storm?
Gardiner did not offer any further explanation about why he supported Ketan Makwana’s offer.
He said: “It is a complete pack of lies that anything relating to the £2.5m Seventy7 Ventures deal was handled in any way other than professionally.
“This is clearly a cover to explain the board’s behaviour on suspension of that deal.
“I will be instructing my lawyers to deal with this accusation immediately.”
Makwana did not respond to a request for comment.
Gardiner’s exit from Caley Thistle coincided with the board’s decision to suspend negotiations with Seventy7 Ventures.
Alan Savage, who served as the club’s chairman from 2006 to 2008, has been drafted in as a consultant to help steady the ship.
The news was warmly greeted by Caley Thistle supporters but the club remains in serious peril.
It is likely to enter administration this week and what happens after that is unclear.
At the stadium, the process of going through Gardiner’s 28,000 unread emails is ongoing.
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