Axed Pars players plead for reprieve
DUNFERMLINE’S axed players have sent personal pleas to chairman Ross McArthur to reconsider his decision to release 17 first-team squad members into Scottish football’s coronavirus-crisis wilderness.
Several of the group, dumped in a mass exodus on Friday, fired text messages to McArthur expressing sadness and anger at being left in ‘no-man’s land’ by the Championship club.
They believed, through PFA Scotland
lobbying, that Dunfermline would be persuaded to continue using the UK Government’s job-retention scheme to extend contracts on a short-term basis.
However, that furlough option was denied to most of their first-team squad, with SPFL board member McArthur insisting his drastic move taken ‘with a heavy heart’ was essential to cut costs.
‘A few of us, including myself, have messaged the chairman just to ask for clarification on his reasoning for this because I don’t think we have really got that so far,’ revealed goalkeeper
Ryan Scully.
‘We’ve not really heard back from that yet. All we can hope for is that he reconsiders.
‘The PFA are still on to him and trying to give him as much information as possible.
‘Listen, Dunfermline are a great club. The last thing I would want is for it to be in any financial trouble. It means a lot to me.
‘But the way things have been handled is disappointing.
I expressed that in my message.
‘I didn’t want to go too overboard, it’s an emotional situation for everybody, but I just want to get points across.
‘We couldn’t stand by and not say anything. He has got the information there.
‘The boys are in trouble and there is a furlough option there to give them a bit of breathing space.
‘Hopefully we will hear something in the next week or so. There has been a bit of a backlash on social media about it.
‘But it’s his decision and, if he doesn’t go back, then that’s life and we just have to move on into no-man’s land and actively go out to look for work.’