Ross Morrison, the chairman of Inverness Caledonian Thistle, last night revealed that Dundee had been even more vociferous in their opposition of the SPFL resolution to end the 2019/20 season early than his Highland club in the build-up to the vote on Friday.
And Morrison, whose club rejected the governing body’s proposal along with their Ladbrokes Championship rivals Partick Thistle, has stated the Dens Park outfit’s mysterious missing email and subsequent silence don’t “smell very well”.
Scottish football descended into absolute chaos on Friday evening when the SPFL revealed it was waiting on a single vote from a second tier club that would determine whether their plan was accepted or rejected.
Inverness and Partick officials were astonished when they heard because they had seen a photograph of the completed “no” form that Dundee secretary Eric Drysdale had submitted on a WhatsApp group that afternoon.
It has since emerged the SPFL told Dundee they hadn’t received the slip, that managing director John Nelms had then asked Drysdale to hold off resubmitting it and then requested that if the original email did eventually arrive it should be disregarded.
Morrison, who lives and works in the Dundee area, confessed that he was mystified by the SPFL making public how their member clubs had voted before the final outcome was known and completely baffled by the bizarre turn of events thereafter.
“I have no idea what’s going on, absolutely none whatsoever,” he said. “They (Dundee) were voting no, they were vehement in their opposition of it. Far more than we were in fact. I don’t know what went on.
“But it seems very strange that their vote goes in to the SPFL and then it is to be treated as uncast because there are 26 days left to vote. That would suggest to me that all 42 votes should therefore be considered uncast because there’s 23 or 24 days left. Can we go and uncast our vote? It is a very peculiar situation.
“They (the SPFL) should know what the proper process is. I am not going to tell them what the proper process is. But I would have thought it is not the best way of doing things in business.
“They said it should be in by 5pm on Friday. It didn’t have to be in by 5pm on Friday. But their (Dundee’s) vote was in by 5pm on Friday. Then it wasn’t. So how does that work? I don’t understand.”
It has been claimed that Dundee, who were third in the Championship and in with a chance of making the end-of-season play-offs when football was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic last month, have held talks with SPFL board members over the weekend and could be using their position to barter over league reconstruction.
But Morrison, whose club was in second place in the second tier when the shutdown was introduced, is unsure what advantage the Tayside club can gain from the impasse.
“Is that the right way to do things?” said Morrison. “I don’t think it’s the right way of doing things. I don’t know if the SPFL think it’s the right way of doing things. How can you lobby Dundee? What do you lobby Dundee with? If they’re offered something what are they offered? I can’t imagine what. It doesn’t smell very well.
“I have met John a few times at games. It seems very strange that all of a sudden they have disappeared. They did give us their word. The boy (Drysdale) said ‘I swear it went at 4.48pm’. You think that’s it gone. If it’s gone it’s gone. It did go, but they said stop it.
“If another team go and do that can they stop that one too? Because it doesn’t have to be in for another 28 days. If this was a film nobody would believe it.”
Shops across Scotland are closing. Newspaper sales are falling. But we’ve chosen to keep our coverage of the coronavirus crisis free because it’s so important for the people of Scotland to stay informed during this difficult time.
However, producing The Herald's unrivalled analysis, insight and opinion on a daily basis still costs money, and we need your support to sustain our trusted, quality journalism.
To help us get through this, we’re asking readers to take a digital subscription to The Herald. You can sign up now for just £2 for two months.
If you choose to sign up, we’ll offer a faster loading, advert-light experience – and deliver a digital version of the print product to your device every day.
Click here to help The Herald.
Thank you, and stay safe.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel