DARKEST HOUR

Pars chairman says he had to axe 17 players

DUNFERMLINE chairman Ross McArthur last night insisted he had to axe 17 players because he had no idea when they would be able to perform again.

Scottish football’s coronavirus lockdown took another grim turn yesterday when the Championship side released most of their first-team squad to cut costs.

Admitting the decision caused him sleepless nights, the Pars chief is sizing up a plan to mothball the second tier until January when fans might be allowed back into grounds.

McArthur, who sits on the SPFL board, believes that playing Championship games

behind closed doors is ‘not viable’. And he fears Scottish football is facing its darkest hour after another batch of out-of-contract players were cut loose. ‘It’s really difficult,’ he told Sportsmail. ‘What we have done today is done with a heavy heart. It’s the last thing you would want to do. But, sadly, I have to protect the business and I’m not in a position where I can increase my fixed costs and take a risk on Dunfermline playing on this date or that date. ‘I have no certainty at all in terms of when we will be playing football again. ‘We are looking at a broad range of dates and some of the boys could land up at other clubs in the Championship who are direct competitors. But that’s just a risk I have to take.’ Pars manager Stevie Crawford was called back from furlough to deliver the news to freed captain Paul Paton and experienced first-team stars, including Danny Devine and Lee Ashcroft. Players union PFA Scotland pleaded with the club to retain the players on the UK government’s job retention scheme as long as possible, and McArthur admitted: ‘There is a human cost to this. I have not slept for the last couple of nights for thinking what had to be done. ‘We took the manager off furlough and Stevie spoke to them all this morning. ‘I have been in contact with the captain and we have tried to wait as long as we could to see if things were getting any clearer. The truth is that they’re not. ‘Even the exit from lockdown offers no real timescale on things like football. ‘Football can’t be any different from any other business. We can’t take undue risk, because there is enough uncertainty without adding to it further.’ As Sportsmail revealed yesterday, Championship clubs will hold a Zoom call on Monday to discuss options to restart the league. With fans unlikely to be admitted to grounds until 2021, closed-door games with pay-per-view live streaming has the support of clubs like Morton. Another option finding favour is mothballing the

Championship until the autumn or January when fans might be allowed back in. ‘There is no clarity in terms of when the season may start for the lower leagues,’ said McArthur. ‘For us to play behind closed doors is not viable in the Championship. ‘Look at the types of protocols and testing that needs to be done in the Bundesliga and English Premiership and I have not got the resources to do that.’ Admitting he is giving serious thought to the idea of a shortened Championship season featuring nine home games and nine away, he added: ‘These are the things we now have to start discussing. ‘We need to decide what is going to be the best model for Scottish football.’