Footie chiefs slammed for comments
A Perth and Kinross councillor who is also secretary at a Scottish Championship club has slammed controversial comments made by Scottish football chiefs Neil Doncaster and Michael Mulraney as “nonsense.”
Councillor Eric Drysdale, who sits on the NHS Tayside board and is club secretary for Dundee FC, defended the Scottish Government’s position.
It comes as senior figures in the game said clubs will be forced to the wall without the income generated by gate receipts.
Many fans are unhappy that indoor facilities like cinemas remain open while fans are locked out of stadiums.
The Scottish Football Association’s vicepresident Mike Mulraney and the chief executive of the Scottish Professional Football League Neil Doncaster caused a storm on Saturday, October 3.
The pair took to BBC Sportsound to claim the ban on football fans in stadia was political as opposed to clinical.
National clinical director Professor Jason Leitch countered: “Absolutely not a political decision, incorrect. You simply can’t open everything. You can’t have it all.”
And Cllr Eric Drysdale, who also chairs the Perth and Kinross Integration Joint Board, backed the clinical director.
The Dundee FC club secretary posted on Twitter:“Quite a backlash against the ill judged and just plain wrong comments of Messrs Doncaster Mulraney, and rightly so.
“It is utter nonsense to say these are political choices.
“They are informed judgement calls by our elected leaders based on scientific, medical and economic advice.”
Perth City North councillor John Rebbeck backed his SNP colleague.
He said:“A crowd of 30,000 fans divided by, say, 10 turnstiles, all turning up at roughly the same time just before KO (and we all know that’s what happens) would mean queues of 3000 people, if they were two metres apart that’s a queue four miles long five minutes before KO.”