Falkirk chief warns lower-tier clubs are gambling futures

FALKIRK chairman Gary Deans last night warned that a number of League One and Two clubs are gambling with their futures after committing to take part in the new SPFL season.

Despite being given the option to ‘hibernate’ for a year and thus shelter from the financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, all 20 clubs from the bottom two tiers have indicated to the governing body that they wish to take part in a truncated 27-game season.

With no guarantee that spectators will be allowed to attend matches by the time the divisions get underway in October, Deans worries that some have taken a serious risk.

‘The option was there for clubs to hibernate,’ he said. ‘Every club has to make their own decisions but, for some, it is a bit of a gamble. It’s roll-of-the-dice stuff.

‘The way things are being framed, clubs felt if they didn’t feel they could play in October they were going to be left behind.

‘And so mothballing or hibernation was therefore not an option for them.’

Falkirk were one of the biggest losers of the result of the vote to end last season early, a process that saw them denied automatic promotion by a slender margin and denied the alternative route up through the play-offs.

Although bruised by the failure of several reconstruction plans to gain traction, Deans insists his club will not only be fully operational in League One next term but remain a full-time outfit.

He said: ‘We are a club punching well below our weight. We are in a place we shouldn’t be. We should be a Kilmarnock or a Motherwell and going down the part-time route is not the way to get back to that.

‘Bizarrely, we did okay last year. Having concluded the financial year, we are in a position of relative strength.

‘But, starting in October with 27 games, that’s a 25-percent reduction in games, the same I assume in income.

‘Everything is being budgeted on a much reduced basis.’

The rancour that has bubbled and boiled since the season was suspended in the wake of coronavirus shows no signs of abating.

On Wednesday, Hearts and Partick Thistle’s joint petition against their relegations from the Premiership and Championship will be heard at the Court of Session.

Deans is sympathetic to their case. He also takes the not incompatible view that the SPFL executive deserve more power to make big decisions going forward.

He is unconvinced the prevailing wind is conducive to clubs suddenly acting in the interests of the greater good. ‘We have just had a letter from the SPFL about taking extraordinary powers in case there is disruption because of Covid,’ he told the BBC’s

Sportsound programme. ‘I think there is merit in that. The centre just don’t have enough control over things.

‘However, where is the trust to give up power to someone else?

‘The way this has been handled, not just by the centre but by all 42 clubs over the past three months, has been appalling. That will weigh on folks’ minds when they come to vote.’

Invited by his fellow Falkirk directors to pitch for a seat on the SPFL board at a forthcoming reshuffle, Deans declined.

He explained: ‘There is a lot in my life and at Falkirk that I need to concentrate on and, secondly, I don’t like the current structure or voting system.

‘The argument is get in there and change it but, as things currently stand, change is almost impossible.’

Deans also decided against pursuing legal action on behalf of his own club.

‘I thought about it long and hard but our legal case would have been much weaker,’ he said. ‘Our decision as a board was to spend money on our squad to try to out-compete the rest of the teams.

‘In terms of Hearts and Partick, the court case is their last card. They have to play it. I don’t think they had any choice.’