CALEY CALL-OFF THREAT OVER MORTON FACILITIES

INVERNESS Caley Thistle are threatening to refuse to play tomorrow’s Championship match against Morton at Cappielow if their players are asked to use the same ‘disgusting’ changing facilities. Following Tuesday night’s Scottish Cup exit to Morton at the same venue, Caley Thistle manager Billy Dodds described the two portable cabins provided by Greenock Morton as ‘not fit for vermin’. Dodds says he received an apology from a Morton director after the match, having given team talks in pitch dark, freezing conditions, with no heat or light. Toilet facilities were also branded dirty and a disgrace by the Highlanders, who, by yesterday evening, had received no assurances that conditions would be improved for the league match. Dodds, describing the stacked portable cabins as a health and safety and Covid hazard, warned: ‘Their director apologised to me after the game, but apparently they have hit out this morning in a statement. ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but if we go back down there and it’s not Covid-safe, there will be an issue. ‘There’s a chance the game won’t go on, simple as that. What else can I say? ‘Would they expect us to accept those conditions? It was freezing cold, soaking wet. It is laughable. We’re professional footballers. Do the professional thing. ‘There were two cabins, one on top of the other, in darkness — and I mean pitch black. We couldn’t risk the players using the steel stairs to go up to the top one as there was no lighting. It was a health and safety hazard. ‘We accept in these Covid days that showers sometimes don’t happen but when the lights go out and you are standing in there freezing cold? ‘We also got two injuries in the tie, Aaron Doran and Sean Welsh. My physio could not see them and diagnose what the problem was. There is a treatment table in the cabin but my physio couldn’t see the actual injuries.’ It is understood Caley Thistle have the backing of the SPFL in their grievance, with Ayr United and Kilmarnock also having lodged complaints about the facilities at Cappielow. But it is also understood there is no league rule outlining a basic standard of changing facilities to be provided by clubs. Pressed on whether there was truth in Morton’s claim they had offered alternative facilities on Tuesday evening, Dodds added: ‘Not directly. There may have been a conversation during the game, but what good is that when the hazard has already happened?’