Livi playing for pride as Covid crisis swallows up any extra prize money

Livingston manager David Martindale admits his players will need to be motivated by pride rather than money as they bid to finish fifth in the Scottish Premiership.

Beating St Johnstone tomorrow would earn Livi about an extra £70,000 in prize money but Martindale expects any financial boost will merely plug gaps caused by the Covid crisis.

A £2 million fee from QPR for Lyndon Dykes initially helped Livi deal with the financial losses but they have now exceeded the transfer income.

“We have lost so much money,” Martindale said. “At the start of the season we never even had win bonuses because nobody knew when fans were coming back in, nobody knew when the next tranche of money was coming from.

“The Scottish Government loan has really helped and part of the regulations were that it’s not used to pay off historic debts, bonuses or buy players. So we need to be really careful with that.

“The extra £70,000, potentially the board will give me some of that to go to the boys but it won’t be a typical league finishing position. Three points are at stake and that’s the motivator, probably not the financial situation.

“If it wasn’t for that loan, I’m not sure where we would be right now.

“Lyndon’s money got us to a certain stage in the season, that just covered a black hole.

“We have lost roughly £2-2.5 million and then you add in the cost of Covid testing, we are up to a quarter of a million pound in that alone.”