Elgin City were willing to pay £3000 for Covid-19 testing to restart Scottish Professional Football League Two season, but Scottish Government suspension of play remains until March
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SPFL lower league clubs' proposal to restart fixtures with Covid testing have been dismissed by yesterday's extension to the suspension of football.
Elgin City chairman Graham Tatters revealed how League One and two outfits put together a plan to resume the season with weekly testing and tightly restricted numbers being allowed into matches.
He said his club was prepared to foot the £3000 bill for testing players before training sessions and matches each week.
The proposal was put in front of the Scottish Football Association for consideration, but fell flat when the Scottish Government rules that restrictions must remain in place until the next review on March 1.
Tatters now believes that Leagues One and Two will have to be reduced to a half season programme of 18 fixtures if it is to reach a conclusion.
Elgin currently sit in second place in League Two having played nine of the 27 matches they were scheduled to play at the start of the campaign.
"We put a proposal in that we consider testing, reduce the number of people at a game, no away directors, and a few other things," he revealed.
"It was submitted to the SFA and was being studied now and we were waiting for a response, but obviously it was a government decision this week and not a football decision to keep the suspension in place.
"Until it is really safe for players to play, I don't have any problem with the decisions that have been made.
"I’ve been saying all along, I don’t think we should have started playing. Now we have started playing, we have to make sure we take care of everyone because that’s paramount in the way we want to do things at this club."
Tatters said League Two clubs will meet again tonight (Wednesday) to discuss the way forward, with the possibility of reducing the fixtures list to 18 games being one of the topics on the agenda.
"My own thoughts would probably be 18. That is achievable and I don’t know if 27 is, especially with the way the weather can be.
"Most clubs would want time to get training in before we start games otherwise you would end up with injuries.
"I would imagine they would be looking for two to three weeks before they start back so that would take us into the middle of March, the 20 something of March, and then you would start playing games.
"If we still try to play 27 games, starting in the middle of next month would push us well into the middle of the year with 27 games.
"We would need a lot of midweek games which is a major, major problem for us in bad weather and part-time football.
"We have a duty of care towards our players and if you are getting guys off work to play at Stranraer or Annan in a midweek game, it's a huge commitment."
Elgin City received a £50,000 share of philanthropist James Anderson's £3 million Covid-19 rescue package to Scottish football.
They were also given a £100,000 government payment which clubs received to keep them afloat while they were not receiving any revenue.
Tatters said that money would have allowed them to pay for testing players until it was safe for restrictions to be lifted.
In the meantime, the Borough Briggs club will continue to keep their playing squad on the government furlough scheme, which is due to expire in April.
That furlough arrangement for City would end when players were able to return to squad training sessions, and the club would resume paying their players' wages.
