Jimmy Sandison: SPFL must step in to prevent Hearts, Inverness, Dundee and others sitting idle in Championship

Hearts and Inverness Caledonian Thistle would both be idle if next season's Championship is delayed.

Hearts, Inverness, Dundee and other Scottish Championship clubs fear being left idle for months if the league’s start date is delayed. Intervention from the Scottish Professional Football League would therefore seem vital.

The former Tynecastle defender Jimmy Sandison believes some teams could go out of business if the SPFL’s second tier is placed in hibernation next season.

A number of Championship clubs say they cannot afford to play matches without income from crowds, meaning they could be inactive until the coronavirus pandemic eases sufficiently to permit fans at football again.

A restructure to accommodate those who can play in the Premiership would be an obvious short-term solution, but obvious does not equal straightforward in the politically self-centred world of Scottish football.

Ann Budge, the Hearts owner, is proposing league reconstruction to implement three leagues of 14 in time for next season. That would prevent any side suffering relegation this year, including her own.

The SPFL are due to discuss the issue as a matter of urgency at a quickly-convened board meeting this morning.

More than half of the 10 Championship teams are reluctant to play behind closed doors and league officials need to devise a way forward quickly.

The ambition is that clubs could restart training next month with permission from the Scottish Government, so those intending to play must be properly prepared for action.

For Hearts, dropping out of the Premiership because of enforced relegation is difficult to accept. Suffering the double jeopardy of watching the top flight begin season 2020/21 while they are left dormant on the sidelines would simply be too much.

Budge has spent the past week preparing a plan for reconstruction but needs 11 of the 12 Premiership teams to vote for it. Sandison acknowledged that the situation is becoming increasingly critical by the day and is concerned teams will end up out of business.

“Clubs have zero finances with no revenue coming in. It puts the players under pressure to take pay cuts,” he told the Evening News.

“Everybody who likes football in Scotland will be desperate to get back watching their team. You can’t say that one set of teams are going to play and the other ones are just going to sit there doing nothing. That’s utter nonsense.

“Any season should start on a particular day with all leagues running together. People are desperate to get back watching football and the first few weeks after this pandemic will be huge. There is going to be so much interest because fans will have missed it for so long.

“At the moment it just looks like an absolute shambles. If you’re saying to me right now that one set of teams are going to start playing and another set will just be sitting still, that’s just no good to anybody.

“Teams have to play. That’s the biggest thing for me. However the top brass decide it, the leagues have to all start at the same time. They have to take the lead here because clubs are going to end up going to the wall.

“We’ve seen players furloughed to help finances because a lot of clubs are run on a fine line. They operate week to week. It’s so difficult to see how they will come out of this.

“Clubs need their 40 games so they have crowds coming in every week. When they don’t have that, it then falls on a board of directors or an owner to keep the whole thing going. It must be horrendous pressure.

“If some teams won’t be back playing as quickly as others, I wonder if they might end up out of business. That would be dreadful and so, so sad because it wouldn't be their fault at all.”

Hearts, Partick Thistle and Stranraer are still reeling from the decision by 80 per cent of SPFL clubs to call an end to the current campaign with matches still outstanding.

That resulted in all three dropping down a tier as the bottom-placed teams in their respective divisions. “It’s laughable some of the decisions which have been made,” said Sandison.

“You always think of the English leagues looking at us. They seem to think our league is a bit of a nonsense anyway – Rangers and Celtic, with the rest hanging on.

“It must look dreadful. Even now, we can’t get round a table and sort out a decision on the best way forward. There is an opportunity to improve the product here.

“A lot of people are talking about league reconstruction rather than punish teams. Can we add to the leagues, make it bigger for one or two seasons and restructure a bit? I think a number of things could have been done better.”

Hearts were eager to play out the remaining league matches and try to overhaul the four-point deficit between themselves and Hamilton at the foot of the table.

Coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown caused chaos which will reverberate across the globe for many months, perhaps years, to come.

“This is uncharted territory. We are living in a strange world because of what is happening,” said Sandison. “People come up with some good ideas but it’s impossible to please everybody.

“From day one, I always thought this season could finish once the pandemic had died down. We could have got through the remaining eight games by playing three in a week and then adjusted next season if necessary.

“It’s extremely unfair for a number of clubs that this season has an asterisk beside it. We will always wonder what could have happened if it had been finished.

“The final part of the campaign always becomes exciting when teams are going for titles, Europe, the top six, or trying to avoid a relegation battle. There is always going to be a bad taste in my mouth that this season hasn’t been finished. I’m just talking in general, not as an ex-Hearts player.

“I’ve played in relegation battles myself and it goes down to the last game of the season. You could be a number of points behind and drag another team into it. The wheels can come off the wagon for some clubs, you have injuries, suspensions, all sorts of stuff. It makes it so exciting.

“With eight games left, to say these teams are going down but those other teams can’t go up because there are no play-offs, it’s always going to be a sore one.”

A message from the Editor: Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you. In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper. Our journalists are highly-trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis. With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper. Thank you. Joy Yates, Editorial Director.