Budge must prove her plan is lifeline for a sinking game
ABETTING man would offer long odds on Ann Budge forcing league reconstruction through at the second attempt.
It has failed once already. And, unless there’s a silver bullet in a revised plan on Monday, it might fail again.
Budge hasn’t helped herself at times. Privately, other chairmen blame a lack of diplomacy when she could have done more to win the votes she needs to save Hearts from relegation.
But this is no time for sparing fragile egos. Or dancing on the head of a pin. Scottish football is currently hurtling towards the foot of the canyon on a handcart with no brakes.
The Premiership is scrambling to put together a plan which
might convince the Scottish Government to let them play games behind closed doors and keep Sky Sports sweet.
Championship chairmen will meet on Monday to consider a proposal to delay starting the second tier until January and play half a season when the fans
might be allowed back in. Clubs in all of Scotland’s lower leagues, meanwhile, are weighing up a stark choice between hibernation until 2021, or braving the harsh economic winds and finishing up roadkill.
Ladbrokes’ sponsorship money has gone. And if the League Cup can’t get under way at all, Betfred and Premier Sports will ask for their money back. Throw in the cost of paying players and some clubs would be as well buying a job lot of Domestos and taking Donald Trump’s advice.
All of which compels Budge to ask Premiership chairmen a blunt question. Why would they make things any worse by condemning one of the biggest clubs in the country to another brush with administration?
The Championship was a hard place to balance the books even before Covid-19 took hold. Now? Dunfermline chairman Ross McArthur claims games behind closed doors are not viable and released 17 players yesterday because he has no idea when they’ll play again.
Queen of the South’s Billy Hewitson, meanwhile, says playing without fans or a government hand-out would be ‘financial suicide’.
Strip it down and playing lower league games behind closed doors is pointless. Clubs at that level have no huge TV contract to fret over. The furlough scheme they’ve been using to pay players and staff will end soon. And all they are doing is excluding the very communities they exist to serve.
This week, the SPFL warned chairmen in Leagues One and Two that swabbing directors, coaches, players and staff three times a week would cost them between £3,000 and £5,000 every seven days. Right now, they’d be better off turning out the lights and saving themselves the cost and hassle.
Championship clubs will decide their course of action at the start of next week but for the likes of Hearts and Morton, the sums don’t add up.
While most of the Tynecastle club’s high earners will leave if they’re relegated, some players will have nowhere better to go. They’ll expect to have their contracts honoured and paying the wages of players mothballed until January, when the league
might start up, is a recipe for financial disaster.
Partick Thistle are in the same boat. Relegated to League One in brutal circumstances, they would normally fancy themselves to get back up at the first time of asking.
But if Championship clubs can’t afford to play games behind closed doors, then how the hell does anyone expect the divisions below to manage it?
After meeting Neil Doncaster this week, chairmen from the third and fourth tiers asked for time to explore every avenue to get the season restarted.
The likes of Partick want to get back playing. And spare a thought for Queen’s Park. If there was a worse time to end 150 years of amateurism and start paying players, it’s hard to think of one. They want to earn their keep as well.
The problem lies with the clubs who simply can’t afford the testing protocols. For many in the lower leagues, paying £20k a month to test players for coronavirus is fantasy economics. Hibernation makes more sense.
The Budge paper, then, has to appeal to the altruistic streak in her fellow chairmen. Petty rivalries have to be set to one side.
Three leagues of 14 now looks optimistic. To prevent even more unnecessary suffering, reconstruction must mean a top tier of 14 teams, incorporating Hearts and Inverness. And a Championship of 12 teams including Partick Thistle and Falkirk.
Scottish football is reaching for the lifeboats. Why throw some of our biggest clubs over the side of a sinking ship?