MacGregor has open mind over Budge’s plans

HEARTS believe the impending chaos of a cut-down SPFL Championship could kill off Premiership opposition to league reconstruction. And they received crucial public backing from one top-flight club yesterday as Ross County chairman Roy MacGregor — an avowed supporter of the status quo — stressed the need for an open mind on expanding the elite division to 14 teams. Hearts chairman Ann Budge will take her place at today’s virtual summit of Championship clubs and tune in to plans which

includes delaying kick-off until October at the earliest and playing just 18 games in a 2020-21 season effectively cut in half. Budge sees the embarrassing prospect of Scotland’s third biggest club being thrown into a brutally-curtailed second tier as a potential game changer in the reconstruction debate. The hope is that, when she presents redrawn blueprints for a 14-team top flight this week, Premiership sides who previously spiked reconstruction will deliver the 11-1 majority needed to push through expansion. MacGregor said yesterday that, while he still believes a 12-team top flight is the best option, he is now keeping an open mind. ‘Ann is, naturally, looking at her own club and a really important club to Scottish football,’ he told BBC Radio Scotland’s Sportsound. ‘There was a view among the Premiership clubs that it (reconstruction) needed time — and the time to do it wasn’t in a crisis. ‘But if we have a Championship season that doesn’t happen, or doesn’t happen until Christmas, that would further dent Hearts’ position. ‘I was horrified when I heard they might play half a season. ‘It is difficult. I’ve been through this before and worked six months on it (reconstruction) — and there still wasn’t unanimity on it after six months. ‘But we have to be open and open to everything, because I think the reality of where Scottish football is going to be is beginning to hit home. ‘I was always for 12 in the top flight. In the last round of voting, I was one of the renegades who went for 12. ‘But we’re in strange territory and I’m keeping an open mind. ‘I’m not sure, if it was Ross County, St Mirren or Hamilton who had been in 12th place, it would have been the same. ‘But Hearts are a major institution. They’ve got a major fan base there. And they are unhappy, in that fan base, whether it’s about the football or anything else. ‘They’re just expressing themselves. As a responsible club, we need to listen to that.’