Dons chairman concedes season is unlikely to end

Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack accepts the Scottish Premiership season looks over.

But the United States-based businessman is heartened by the unified approach among topflight clubs into working with the Scottish Government to get football back up and running.

Cormack recently wrote to his Premiership counterparts urging them to examine ways of completing the season but now accepts that looks a forlorn task.

While Rangers and Hearts have petitioned clubs into launching an independent inquiry into the vote which ended the lower league season, Cormack was encouraged by a recent call where the focus was on getting back to action.

The football authorities’ joint response group last week kicked off six committees designed to work with the Scottish Government in a bid to get into a position to restart football.

The SFA and SPFL will hold talks with sports minister Joe Fitzpatrick today.

Cormack told Red TV: “The key priority isn’t necessarily if we finish 19/20, which is looking more unlikely as the days go by, but is really how do we get back to playing football safely and as quickly as we can?

“And if it’s going to be behind closed doors, what does that look like from a safety standpoint and the cost of that plus from a commercial standpoint if more games are going to be watched on television?

“That’s where the different groups are focused right now.

“We had a call with 13 clubs – the 12 existing clubs in the Premiership plus Dundee United – and the message was absolutely clear from every club: let’s focus on what we need to do to get a plan together to work cohesively with the Scottish Government in order to get this plan in place.

“Obviously things are moving in England and Germany but the interesting stuff for us is, for example, if they are playing football or training in Carlisle, Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Sunderland, which is closer to Glasgow than Aberdeen is, and we are not doing it in Scotland.”