Dunfermline and Dundee angry about wait in limbo over SPL future

Dunfermline Athletic and Dundee FC may have to wait beyond Monday to find out which of the two clubs will be playing in the Clydesdale Bank Scottish Premier League next season.

Though the SPL has its agm tomorrow and the item about who replaces Rangers is supposed to be on the agenda, Dundee chief executive Scot Gardiner said: “It’s a joke situation.

“Much to our annoyance, we have had no correspondence from anyone about this decision. I have not even had a phone call or an e-mail about the meeting on Monday.

“We have been saying for weeks that we should go up to the SPL on sporting merit.

“My understanding is that if Rangers were liquidated while the season was still running then it had to 
be Dunfermline, but as it 
happened after that, it has to be Dundee.”

Dunfermline director of football, Fife Provost Jim Leishman, said: “We have been led to believe by SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster that every club in the SPL will vote on Monday on whether it is us or Dundee, but that may now change following the SFL decision to put Rangers into the Third Division.

“I don’t know what the discussions will be now, but we just want a fair crack of the whip.” Scotland on Sunday can reveal that as long ago as 18 June, the SFA document “Newco & Scottish Football A Strategic Review” told the SFA Board that Dundee would be promoted.

On page seven of the review authored by chief executive Stewart Regan, as “part of a unified solution for football in Scotland,” the document states “newco (Rangers) be 
relegated to the second tier of 
Scottish football with corresponding promotion of Dundee FC.”

An SFA source confirmed that the information had come from the SPL, following legal advice about “sporting merit”.

The SFA, however, could be asked to judge an appeal by either club against the SPL decision, and as a result, Dunfermline say Regan should have had no role in league matters.

Yorkston said: “It is not his job to do that, and I feel there’s been an agenda here, that it’s already all been agreed.”

Asked it was a “stitch up”, Yorkston noted: “A paper to the SFL Board three weeks ago also said it would be Dundee.”

The decision to keep newco Rangers out of the SPL was taken on 
4 July and the decision to put them in the Third Division was taken only on Friday.