Ann Budge: Survival plan for all clubs - not just Hearts

Tynecastle chief insists her 14-14-14 set-up will help the game through crisis

Hearts owner Ann Budge has put forward new reconstruction proposals. Picture: Bill Murray/SNS

Hearts owner Ann Budge has appealed to all Scottish football clubs to accept that they are facing a new normal and show the flexibility needed to survive the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

Circulating her proposals for a 14-14-14 league structure – with the option to increase the bottom league to 16, if clubs are minded to include Brora Rangers and Kelty Hearts – she believes it reflects the three-tier reality of football in the country, as the authorities plot the best way back to competitive football.

The consultation paper was sent out to all 42 SPFL members yesterday evening and will be discussed at today’s SPFL board meeting.

And, while Budge accepts that no solution is likely to be considered perfect, she believes that her submission offers clubs the opportunity to make individual decisions that will safeguard their future while also protecting the league’s profitable broadcast contract with Sky.

The SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster has told clubs that, following talks with the television rights holders, a 14-team Premiership would be acceptable. In fact, stated Budge, the proposed enlargement of the Premiership will be seen positively, bringing with it as it does, both Edinburgh and Highland derbies.

She said: “This paper is not about restructuring. It is about survival.”

While Premiership clubs are hopeful of kicking off the new season behind closed doors by the end of August at the latest, a number of Championship sides have said they would be unable to fund an entire season without gate receipts, suggesting an 18-game campaign instead, in the hope that fans will be allowed back into grounds in the new year. Given the severity of the current situation, others in Leagues 1 and 2 have said their only route to survival is completely mothballing next season.

Acknowledging these different needs, the Hearts owner, whose relegated club stands to start the new term in the Championship if reconstruction is not agreed, says the proposals address the “widely accepted and much debated unfairness and unjustness of relegating clubs as a result of the early termination of Season 2019/20”.

She also claims the flexibility of the new structure makes it easier for the game as a whole to tackle the huge challenges facing clubs of all sizes.

“The proposed restructure involves moving to three enlarged divisions, each of which would focus on tackling the specific and different challenges facing the larger, the medium and the smaller (often part-time) clubs. We are trying to plan for the quickest and most effective way of getting Scottish football back to normal.

“That said, we all know that there is going to be a ‘new normal’. What that ‘new normal’ will look like and what it will mean for clubs, for players, for supporters and indeed for our governing bodies is a question none of us can answer right now.

“What we do know is that it is going to be different and it is going to bring enormous challenges both in the immediate and in the medium term. A flexible, not a rigid, approach to meeting the challenges ahead will be vital.”

Those, she insists, “will also be very different depending upon whether you are a League 1 or League 2 club, a Championship club or a Premiership club. In the same way as the challenges are going to be different, so too are the solutions. There is no “one-size fits all” solution here.

“The proposed changes, creating three bigger leagues, means that if, some clubs cannot see a way to play this season, there will hopefully be enough clubs in each league to allow the season to go ahead, albeit in a modified form. Maximum flexibility is crucial.

“In short, the Premiership needs Hearts more than the Championship does. The Championship needs Partick Thistle more than the lower leagues do. Let’s focus on dealing with the problem of saving Scottish football from a position which plays to our strengths and minimises our weaknesses.”

While conceding that her proposition is largely unchanged from that voted down by Premiership clubs two weeks ago, she says the intervening period has seen a “growing realisation of just how badly season 2020-2021 is likely to be impacted. There is a growing fear that a number of clubs will be unable to play next season. More than ever, the focus is on survival. Changes to the league structure seem almost inevitable.

“Contingency plans will have to be put in place. Questions regarding when and how we will be able to return to play, are still not able to be answered. But there is genuine concern around how many clubs will be able to play at all next season and indeed whether all 42 professional clubs will survive.”

The proposed change is for the next two seasons, after which clubs could vote on whether to revert to the current structure, implement the new set-up permanently, or look at further reconstruction.

Budge added: “I want to urge every club to look at this proposal not as a way to save Hearts, Partick Thistle and Stranraer but as a better way for Scottish football to deal with the current emergency, while at the same time righting an unintended injustice.

“There is pressure to get our Premiership clubs playing as quickly as possible to protect our broadcasting contract. It looks increasingly likely that the only way to get the season started will be to initially play behind closed doors. This will bring major challenges for Premiership clubs, not least in financial terms.”

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