Inverness have responded strongly to claims that they ended long-serving striker Shane Sutherland's time with the club by email.

The 32-year-old forward has been sidelined for the past year by an anterior cruciate ligament injury and will leave Caley Thistle after they decided not to extend his contract.

However, Sutherland, who scored 21 goals from 162 appearances over two spells at Inverness, posted a series of tweets on Friday morning outlining concerns about the way the process had been handled and questioning the level of medical support he was given in his quest to recover from injury.

"Nine years between 2 different spells at ICT has come to an end today, that's football I've not played in a year so in terms of the contract not being extended as they say that's life, but to find out via an email after such a difficult year with the injury wasn't a nice read," he tweeted.

"Especially when the injury is still ongoing and I had been waiting 5 weeks for a brace to try and help get to bottom of issue. Suppose not hearing from the physio about it in 3/4 weeks and hearing it would be 'cheaper if I didn't play again' and a zoom call with a guy who had never met me or seen a scan when telling me 'I would need to think about retiring' that I was never ever going to get the support I needed to get back on the pitch."

Inverness claimed the situation had been "completely misrepresented" as they issued a lengthy statement defending themselves on Friday afternoon which began by outlining the legal process of releasing a player in Sutherland's position.

"Contrary to what has been said or reported, following the above process, the club spoke to Shane Sutherland face to face at a proper formal meeting at the stadium and sadly had to inform him that no new contract would be offered for a number of football reasons," it read.

"He then had the opportunity to appeal that decision, like every player has at all 42 SPFL clubs, if they have been there for 2 years or more. He did not appeal that decision.

"What then has to happen by law is that the decision is both emailed and sent out in a letter to the player.

"Again, we strictly follow the law and use the template letters supplied to us by the SPFL. Most clubs were unaware of this fairly recent UK employment law development but these are the facts of what happened in this case and it is unfortunate that so many people wrongly criticise the club without knowing those facts.

"The rest of his posts are like his initial post, a complete misrepresentation of the facts and in some cases completely untrue."

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The article Inverness adamant they did not release Shane Sutherland by email appeared first on Planetsport.com.