Dunfermline players given wages pledge by Jim Leishman

RANGERS’ failure to pay £84,000 in ticket revenue was the immediate cause of Dunfermline’s failure to pay their players’ salaries in full yesterday, but other issues such as smaller than expected attendances also contributed to the financial difficulties at East End Park.

The players only received 60 per cent of their wages and, although the club is confident those difficulties will only be short-term, the effect of attendance figures on the club’s budget will be felt in the coming months and possibly longer.

As director of football Jim Leishman explained yesterday, even the relatively modest attendances predicted by that budget have at times failed to materialise.

“You can prepare a budget at the start of the season and then things crop up that you don’t expect,” he said. “Our attendances are down more than we expected this year, whether it’s [because of] the team’s performance or early afternoon TV games at 12.

“We budgeted for 6,000 against Hibs and we got 4,100. There are 1,900 people that we thought would be through the gate on average from the last two or three games we played against Hibs. It was not a false figure we came up with, it was a genuine expectation, so that’s something you can’t recoup.”

The home game against Rangers last month would normally have been one of Dunfermline’s biggest money-spinners of the season. They hope to receive the money in due course but are reliant on negotiations between the Scottish Premier League and Rangers’ administrators, so know they cannot pencil in a date to receive it. Leishman was loath to heap more criticism on Rangers yesterday, preferring to stress his belief that Dunfermline’s directors would soon solve the problem.

“Rangers have enough problems just now without us criticising Rangers Football Club, but the money they are due us is part of it,” he said.

“We had, unfortunately, the Kilmarnock game being postponed and then we had quite a lot of storm damage. You have to pay that money out to get it fixed before games can be played.

“There are two or three things that have accumulated but it’s only a short-term problem. After the game on Saturday the players will get a further 20 per cent and then, as quickly as we can, the finance department have guaranteed that they will get paid up in full.”

That game against Motherwell is Dunfermline’s last for three weeks, as next weekend’s Scottish Cup quarter-finals are followed by the League Cup final. A sizeable gate tomorrow would clearly help financially and in any case, the club hope for increased backing as they continue their fight to avoid relegation.

The longer that fight continues either way, the more they are likely to attract big gates. If they fall too far behind Hibs so that a return to the First Division becomes inevitable, interest will drop off.

Similarly, if by some chance they were to reach safety with a few weeks of the season to go, the crowds might not be the same.

At least, given their plight at the bottom of the table, Dunfermline’s players have become used to fighting against adversity. Assistant manager Gerry McCabe said he was confident they would not be demotivated by the club’s financial woes.

“Jim Leishman and the chief executive [Bill Hodgins] came down this morning and had a chat with the boys and they know the situation,” said McCabe.

“They have explained the situation and the boys have been great with it. The boys are fine; that’s all they wanted to know. It’s been clarified this morning, so what we’re doing now is getting ourselves ready for Saturday. You get the usual banter and slagging going on. They’re here to play football and that’s all we can do. There are people running the club and we concentrate on the football side of it.”

Dunfermline fell three points behind Hibs last weekend, when they lost at St Johnstone while Pat Fenlon’s side beat Kilmarnock. But they have been in that position before and fought back, and McCabe believes they can do the same again. “This is the league we worked so hard to get into and they know the SPL is a different ball game,” he said.

“It’s been a challenging season so far. Although the results have not gone for us, we’ve enjoyed the challenge.

“We’ve got nine games to go and nine cup finals. The boys know that. We’re desperate to stay in this league and we’ll do everything we can. We’re not detached at the bottom and we know what we have to do.

“The boys just want to play football. They have been reassured and we’re concentrating on football. We’ve got a spirited bunch in there.

“They look forward to every game and the training has been great every week. They’ve never been down, and we can never fault the guys the way they’ve gone about their business in training and in most of the games this season. Hopefully on Saturday we can continue that.”