Bigger clubs should cover costs, insists Ibrox boss

RANGERS manager Steven Gerrard has called on Scotland’s leading clubs to help lower-league sides pay for Covid-19 testing and stop the Betfred Cup from descending into mayhem.

SPFL officials announced on Friday night that any non-Premiership team drawn against a top-flight outfit in the tournament, due to start in just over a fortnight’s time, must submit a sufficient number of negative swab tests or forfeit the tie by a 3-0 scoreline.

In England, Gerrard’s former club Liverpool are understood to have offered to pay for Lincoln City’s players to be tested before their meeting in the Carabao Cup on Thursday — with other Premier League teams preparing to pick up the bill when being put up against opposition from divisions below them.

And the Ibrox boss believes that is something to be considered north of the border as the game tries to steer its way through the obvious problems created by an upsurge in coronavirus cases in wider society and a number of lower-league sides

with part-time players working day jobs.

The SPFL board has already stated that any Premiership team putting a colt side in the Challenge Cup must cough up the fees should they want the opposition to swab-test their squad.

‘Everyone is desperate to get supporters back in the stadiums and closer to normality as quickly as we can but the priority has to be safety, a player’s health,’ said Gerrard.

‘About part-time teams or teams in the lower leagues who are not tested, that’s something that needs to be looked into as it could lead to more problems.

‘I also think, and I don’t think the club will thank me for this, that the big clubs might need to show some support to the part-time teams or other teams lower down that are not in the same financial position.

‘That’s the only way I can see things progressing the way we all want them to progress — if the top clubs or the ones who are higher up support the ones who are lower down.’

SPFL chiefs have also been discussing plans for the season, as a whole, should Covid-19 make it impossible to fulfil the fixture list. According to recent reports, they could ask clubs to back a plan to hand out prizes and trigger relegations providing 50 per cent of games have been completed.

Asked if there is a need for the SPFL to decide on protocol following the chaos that broke out at the end of last season, with Hearts and Partick Thistle going to court after being relegated, Gerrard replied: ‘That’s for the league to answer.’