Clyde aim to play amid league merger plan

Clyde chairman John Taylor insists they are not looking to‘mothball’next season, as the SPFL weighs up plans to merge League One and Two for a year.

Clubs in the SPFL’s bottom two tiers have been officially asked if they will be ready to compete in the next few months, but if a large number of clubs opt to hibernate or mothball for the 2020/21 campaign, it could see Leagues One and Two come together for a season.

August, October and January have been put forward as potential re-start dates and the Clyde have met to discuss the proposals.

Clubs have until Friday to submit their preferred option.

Taylor – who said last week the club are in a‘critical period’due to the Covid-19 shutdown and need to raise £75,000 to compete next term – has ruled out August for the Bully Wee, but says they are determined to play League One football this season.

He said :“It’s all to do with income versus the cost of starting, so it’s very much up in the air at the moment. “August is definitely out for us. “You’ve got a scenario at the moment where you aren’t allowed to train as such, so there’s issues with that.

“The players are on furlough and as soon as that ends you need to pay players, but you’ve got no income from the Betfred Cup or crowds, and you’ve got testing.

“Everything is against starting sooner rather than later, unless something changes.

“The SPFL are talking about the Betfred Cup in October and we thought we weren’t looking at starting until November. We’ll have a look at October, but it depends on whether football can cover the cost of restarting.

“We really want to start the season. We don’t want to mothball, but the finances need to stack up.”

The Scottish Premiership is due to kick-off on August 1, while the Championship has been put back until October 17 with a reduced 27-game campaign.

Clubs are being asked if they can match either of those dates, or whether an 18-match campaign in January would be feasible – with Covid-19 testing in place.

Taylor added:“We knew this league communication was coming, so we just have to look at it, re-work budgets we’ve looked at for different scenarios and go from there.”