Decision to suspend leagues a ‘betrayal’

Former first minister Henry Mcleish has launched a withering critique of the decision to pause the Scottish football season below the top two tiers, describing it as an “outrageous act of betrayal”.

Mcleish, who played for East Fife before he entered politics, and later conducted a review of the national game, made no attempt to hide his anger that the Methil club and others in the bottom two professional divisions and further down the pyramid won’t play again for three weeks at the earliest.

He believes they have been “sacrificed” as a result of the Celtic in Dubai saga that the sport’ s governing bodies have been running away from confronting.

“This is an outrageous act of betrayal in relation to League One, League Two and other leagues affected,” said Mcleish, the chairman of Fife Elite Academy.

“It reflects the two-level mentality within the game at Hampden and illustrates the lack of leadership.”

“No one was consulted,” addedMcLeish. The chairmen of these clubs were told about it at the same time as the media.

“It’s an outrageous way to run anything and illustrates a complete lack of democracy.

“Now they’ve reached a point where these clubs have been sacrificed to overcome an issue that the football authorities have failed to deal with – Celtic’s trip to Dubai.”

Mcleish insisted there is an inextricable link between the lower league suspension and a Celtic player, Christopher Jullien, testing positive for coronavirus on return from a warm-weather training camp and a raft of others having to self-isolate.

“The timing is no coincidence,” he said.

“Nicola Sturgeon was absolutely right in her briefing to say: ‘ Why do I have to talk about football when people are dying every day?’

“It’s something that the football authorities should be dealing with, not the government.

“No one seems to be willing to take responsibility for it in football. There are no serious apologies being offered and no serious suggestion of sanctions or discipline.

“It can’t be a coincidence that with the government coming after the Scottish Premiership because of their lack of responsibility, without consultation sacrifices were made of the lower league clubs. “This is a dark day.” Returning to the unjust imbalance of the suspension and the worrying ramifications, Mcleish added: “Of course the government want to cut down travel but what’s the difference between League One and League Two clubs travelling and those in the Premiership and Championship?

“For my old club, East

Fife, and many others with great histories, they want to have a great future.

“A lot of them are just striving to survive. Is there going to be more compensation for the clubs which are being abandoned? We’ve got three weeks of this SPFL and SFAimposed lockdown.

“We don’t know what the situation will be in February. Ask the question – why are half the leagues kept open and the other half closed? There is no sensible answer.

“Someone, with no consultation, has taken a decision to close down these leagues and it represents a sell-out of the clubs in them.

“When there should be solidarity, common purpose and looking out for each other, we have this rift developing.

“My challenge for the chairmen of League One and Two clubs is to accept there is no democracy at the moment and stand up and be counted to not allow this to happen again.”

It now falls to the SFA and SPFL to repair strained relationships with the Scottish Government.

“I’ve seen this for a long time,” said Mcleish.

“There’s a lack of trust between the Scottish Government and the football authorities.

“This has been created because the football authorities want the support of the government but on a number of issues, fail to take responsibility for what is going on in the game.

“Will the SFA and SPFL step up to the plate and deal with the Celtic issue? Don’t burden government with football’s problems.

“My main concern is the rock bottom relationship between Scottish football and the government.

“It doesn’t need to be like this and it’ s not the government’s fault.

“We’ ve reached the lowest point in the game for a long time.”

The decision to enforce a three-week break outside the Premier ship and championship had an air of inevitability about it but have Scotland’s smaller teams been “offered up” to appease a government angry about breaches further up the football pyramid?

Before the weekend, concerns had already been raised about teams of part-time players travelling to play Scottish Cup ties but it is something they have been doing for months.

It cannot have helped that Celtic have reported a positive case after a controversial – many would argue completely unnecessary – trip to Dubai this month.

That sent out the message, not for the first time, Scottish football cannot police itself. And not for the first time, the smaller sides suffer.

Time and again, senior clubs have let the game down with protocol breaches, while those on lower levels of the pyramid have obeyed the rules and struggled to survive.

Indeed, most have gone above and beyond for their communities, delivering supplies, making social calls and throwing themselves into charity work during the pandemic.

Thankfully, recently announced government crisis grants are available to these sides, which must be expedited.

Part-time, junior and amateur football clubs are about more than their on-field endeavours.

They can be the heart of communities. It is time we started taking more care of them.