SPFL lower leagues and cup to finish
Scottish Cup and the lower leagues in big restart
SCOTLAND’S lower leagues are set to confirm plans for a 22-game season to get the campaign finished. And the SFA last night confirmed the resumption of the Scottish Cup on March 23, with the final pushed back two weeks to allow the competition to conclude before Hampden is handed over to UEFA for the Euro finals. Lower league chairmen held emergency talks on Tuesday night after First Minister Nicola Sturgeon finally gave the green light for training to resume. Playing four games a week to complete a 27-game season ahead of play-offs commencing on May 5 was
deemed impractical. A null and void end to the season also failed to carry enough support.
And finishing the campaign after 18 games raised the spectacle of Championship clubs refusing to entertain promotion or relegation.
The option which carried most weight was a 22-game season, with a four-match split after 18 fixtures. And that plan could be confirmed after club chairmen finish consulting with their fellow directors.
Clubs held further talks last night to firm up the plans, with Stenhousemuir chairman Iain McMenemy insisting there was an ‘absolute desire’ to play as many games as possible.
Together with Jacqui Low of Partick Thistle, Jim Brown of Edinburgh City, Peterhead’s Martin Johnson and Gordon Thomson of Clyde, McMenemy is a member of a lower-league working party set up to study proposals for the resumption of the season
And he confirmed: ‘We hope to be back playing games within a couple of weeks. There is no prescribed timetable of training before we play competitive games. It’s really down to football to make that decision ourselves.’
While some teams favoured cancelling the season and declaring it null and void, McMenemy declared himself to be ‘confident every club will get back to playing’.
‘I think there’s close to zero chance of the season being scrapped,’ he added. ‘But we have to consider it. We also have to consider, can we do 27 games? That’s probably unlikely now.
‘That leaves 18 or 22 as an option — with a top-five split — and it will probably fall on one of those two and we will now be going back to our clubs to see what their preferences are.’ Continuing the season means PCR testing costs of £15,000 a month for cash-strapped clubs. Insisting that is a price they have to pay to finish the season, however, McMenemy added: ‘We’ve had money from government and (benefactor) James Anderson and that will be used to make sure we have full testing in place.’
The SFA have also ended talk of this season’s Scottish Cup being delayed until next season or scrapped altogether, with incomplete second-round ties now scheduled to be played on March 23.
The third round will be played on Saturday, April 3, with the fourth and fifth rounds played over the course of a week between April 17 and 24.
The final, originally pencilled in for May 8, will now be the date for the first semi-final — with the second semi-final the following day and the final pushed back to May 22. SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell sees the news as a boost for the entire game.
‘The Scottish Cup is our flagship competition and we are pleased that the temporary suspension of the lower leagues has now been lifted to allow the matches to resume.
‘With the green shoots of hope emerging with the continuing successful rollout of the vaccination programme and the announcement of restrictions easing in the future, the news that the Scottish Cup final will be played in May at Hampden Park will hopefully come as a further boost to Scottish football fans this week.
‘The remaining rounds will be played in quick succession and with the fixtures coming thick and fast as the domestic season comes to a conclusion, the showpiece Scottish Cup final will once again provide an exciting finale for the Scottish football season.’