Dundee blast selfish St Mirren over reconstruction u-turn
Bringing the two league bodies into one, distributing commercial money throughout the game and creating a middle division with four top tier slots available have generally been welcomed throughout the game.
Neil Armageddon Doncaster believed that the plan was fully backed by SPL clubs but a week after rolling out the red carpet to Charles Green the Paisley club are ready to pull the plug on league reconstruction.
Saints chairman Stewart Gilmour is believed to be concerned about the impact on season ticket sales if his club fails to reach the top eight for the final part of the season.
There seems little difference in the quality of matches involved between finishing in eighth place with little prospect of winning a European place and finishing ninth to drop into the middle tier where seven other clubs will be fighting to finish in the top four to start the following season in the top division.
Clubs currently in the First Division would be the main beneficiaries of the changes receiving around £300,000 a year allowing them to retain full-time set ups.
Dundee know more than most about the difficulties facing survival for clubs in the First Division with chairman Scot Gardiner furious at the view taken by St Mirren
“We’re one of the clubs disappointed in the statement from St Mirren and we won’t be the only one,” Gardiner stated. “There have been elements of this we don’t agree with but to have a situation where you come up with a system which makes provision for 42 clubs — ranging from PLCs with a turnover of £100million, to clubs effectively run by committee, it’s nigh on impossible to do.
“It has been long hours, with hard work, to get to this current set-up that we have and I’m afraid it’s Utopian and just doesn’t relate to real life to think some clubs can just cherry-pick what they want from it.
“That’s particularly the case when those clubs didn’t bring up those things throughout the process — and I’m talking about St Mirren here.
“It’s easy to say we shouldn’t do this or we shouldn’t do that. We have a sick patient here with Scottish football.
“Are St Mirren acting selfishly? I think it is self-interest. I’m sorry, but I do.
“I respect Stewart’s position when he says that he’s voting for the sake of St Mirren because it’s better for them if things stay the way they are but my position is that it’s certainly not for the good of all of the Scottish game. Almost everyone else in the SPL agrees with me on that.”