Administrator will fight SFL sanctions against Dundee

Published on Saturday 16 October 2010 08:19

Dundee administrator Bryan Jackson has urged the Scottish Football League to show leniency towards the club.

The Dens Park club this week went into administration for the second time in seven years, triggering possible sanctions from the SFL.

Jackson was forced to make nine players redundant yesterday and sack manager Gordon Chisholm and assistant Billy Dodds.

The management pair were only recruited in March from Irn-Bru First Division rivals Queen of the South after Jocky Scott was sacked while the Tayside club led the table.

Dundee spent more on wages than most top-flight clubs last season in a vain attempt to win promotion to the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.

But less than 18 months after paying Livingston 300,000 for striker Leigh Griffiths, an unpaid tax bill now totalling around 420,000 forced the club to bring in Jackson from recovery specialists PKF.

In the previous two years both Gretna and Livingston were relegated from the First to the Third Division after calling in administrators.

However, the punishment is at the discretion of the SFL board and Dundee's situation is complicated by the fact that they have broken the league's insolvency rules mid-season, while the two most recent precedents were set in the summer.

The SFL will await developments before acting against Dundee, but Jackson has argued that it is in the league's best interests to allow the former European Cup semi-finalists to recover.

"There are a lot of wider issues here regarding Scottish football but my job is to help Dundee," he said.

"I will fight against any sanctions. All circumstances are different and that's really for the SFL to make up their mind.

"The wider issue is that Dundee are, I believe, the largest club in the league and there is an impact on the other clubs if this club does not survive."

However, Jackson has a more pressing battle with the club's existence under serious threat.

"This club is facing the most difficult fight of its life," he said. "The club only has sufficient funds to last until Christmas at the latest and has debts of 2million.

"We must get money in before Christmas. If I had to guess, I would say there's a 50-50 chance of survival."