Championship clubs eager to see Budge’s revamp plan
CHAMPIONSHIP chairmen have urged Hearts owner Ann Budge to spell out her new plan for league reconstruction. Second-tier clubs held a threehour Zoom meeting yesterday morning to discuss plans to get football back up and running. Talks over funding games behind closed doors through live streaming took place. Discussions over a truncated 18-game season mothballed until October or January were also thrown around. Admitting everything is up in the air until Hearts outline their latest blueprint for a 14-team Premiership, however, Raith Rovers chairman Bill Clark admitted the longawaited paper is now key to future progress, saying: ‘We spoke about a whole load of issues and gave our views and opinions. ‘Nothing really concrete came out of it because there is still so much unknown. We are still waiting to see what Hearts are proposing in terms of this reconstruction. ‘There have been no discussions whatsoever so far because Ann hasn’t come forward with her paper at all. I think it will come in
the next few days, but it’s just delaying everything.’ Facing relegation unless she can come up with a structure likely to convince Premiership clubs to save Hearts, Budge favours a 14-team Premiership — but faces opposition to any temporary measures. With the SFA and SPFL set to outline their plan to get the game back up and running to the Scottish Government on Friday, Championship clubs still don’t know what the future holds. ‘Up until a week ago, I thought it was definite we would be playing in a ten-team Championship,’ added Clark. ‘But now that’s up in the air again because, if we go through some kind of reconstruction, it could be anything. We have no idea what’s in that Hearts paper. ‘So what looked a fairly certain situation two weeks ago, is uncertain again. ‘We are all trying to be as flexible as possible on a whole lot of issues on when we might start training or playing again. But you can only be flexible for so long. We need certainty on some things.’ While some Championship clubs have a large number of players out of contract and can mothball their football operations until fans are allowed back into grounds, the likes of Hearts need to generate income to pay players with long-term deals. Dunfermline chairman Ross McArthur insists games without paying customers are ‘not viable’ in the Championship and Fife counterpart Clark agreed. ‘It’s more likely we could start behind closed doors but that could only be for a short period of time. We really need fans through the turnstiles somehow — fairly quickly, to be honest — or financially we couldn’t survive very long. Behind closed doors is only viable for a few weeks or a month at the most. ‘In the Championship, you have different levels of clubs. ‘You have full-time clubs like Hearts and part-time clubs like Alloa, so their outlook could be different. ‘Some might prefer to delay until January and only play 18 games when fans come back, but that means we only get nine home games. ‘If we are paying player wages from August or September and only playing nine games, that doesn’t work financially at all.’