If Saints backed Budge I’d be asking them why

AFORMER chairman of St Mirren, Stewart Gilmour pulls no punches on the current plight of Hearts.

There’s sympathy for an unjust relegation. A tinge of regret that the chance for an independent investigation into the hierarchy of the SPFL was passed up.

But were he still at the heart of Scottish football, Gilmour would be voting firmly against the reconstruction proposals put forward by Ann Budge. And he would share the primary motivations of the Championship chairmen who are preparing to kick a two-year switch to three leagues of 14 into touch. Namely, self-interest.

‘There is one thing in the minds of chairmen here,’ he told

Sportsmail. ‘They’re all thinking: “What suits my club”? Anyone who tries to tell you anything other than that is telling you lies.

‘It’s human nature. And it’s very

Block: yesterday’s Sportsmail difficult to make the finances work at a Scottish football club.

‘So what you think is: “What difference is this going to make to my finances”?

‘And when they all look at this plan they’ll be thinking in terms of self-preservation.

‘As a director you have a fiduciary duty to look out for the interests of your own club. That’s why you are there.

‘But it’s a crazy situation now and I can’t believe the Hearts proposals will get through.

‘I had a lot of St Mirren fans on social media the other night saying: “I hope our club vote against it”.

‘I also hope they vote against it. Because if they don’t, I would be asking serious question as to why not. The temporary aspect of it is nonsense.’

Were the Budge blueprint a serious proposal for a permanent reconstruction in the best interests of the Scottish game, and one devoid of self-interest, it

might make it past first base. When a broadly similar plan was put before Premiership clubs two weeks ago, however, they rejected it on the basis that the game had bigger issues with which to concern itself.

Not for the first time, Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack appears to have changed his mind on that score.

But, as Sportsmail revealed yesterday, Championship clubs only see a plan which could see six of their number at risk of relegation when the leagues revert to the current 12-10-10-10 format in 2022.

The Premiership, too, could see three or four teams sent down in the same season.

That one of the prime contenders would surely be St Mirren merely fuels Gilmour’s opposition to the whole business.

‘If I was chairman I would vote firmly against it,’ he said.

‘I would hope and expect that other Premiership chairmen will feel the same.

‘It’s the fact that it’s a temporary plan which poses the problems.

‘We (would) have a complete turmoil in two years’ time again which would see three down from the Premiership. Possibly even four down depending on the play-offs.

‘Someone will be sitting in one of these spots who is regarded as a “big club”.

‘And then we will go through all of this again.’

That the plan has been resurrected with little or no change reflects a desire to give Ann Budge a hearing.

The Tynecastle club feel they have been brutally ‘expelled’ from the Premiership with eight games still to play as a result of the coronavirus lockdown.

And while Gilmour (pictured) shares the sympathy of many for Hearts on that score, he echoes a common view amongst chairmen of smaller clubs when he says: ‘This would not have happened had it been Hamilton, St Mirren or Ross County in the situation Hearts are in now.

‘There wouldn’t have been any jumping up and down if one of the so-called “smaller” clubs were in this position.

‘Would anyone be shouting or bawling if it was Livingston? No. ‘This is happening because Hearts are a big club with a big profile. ‘Hearts were bottom of the league when we had to pack the season in. ‘And I think Ann will regret saying that stuff in her paper about “the Premiership needs Hearts more than the Championship does”. ‘I thought that was unnecessarily antagonistic to say that. ‘When I said so, I had a few Hearts supporters coming back at me on Twitter, saying: “Read it, she didn’t mean it like that”. ‘Nevertheless, when you read it, that’s what she said. ‘Maybe she didn’t mean it to come out that way, but if that is the case then she should have thought carefully before she said it.’ Some believe Budge has been politically naive from the start. Putting her name to a Rangers’ resolution seeking an independent investigation into the SPFL’s vote to end the season irked some clubs who felt the game faced more pressing matters.

When she needed to win friends and influence people to back reconstruction, she was publicly critical of some of the people with a vote in the matter.

‘Some of the things she has said at times have alienated people,’ added Gilmour. ‘She has made mistakes.

‘Don’t get me wrong. I am very much in favour of changing to a bigger league, but 14 and not on a temporary basis

‘I would much rather see us having 16 full-time teams (in Scotland overall).

‘I saw Gordon Strachan made a few comments about this.

‘The part-time clubs need to go into a community pyramid system, so we can have 16 full-time clubs.

‘We have no space for more than 16 clubs paying players on a full-time basis.

‘There is no point in kidding ourselves on. But no one wants to say it.

‘Maybe that’s the debate we should be having rather than nonsense over a 14-team top division.’