Scottish season’s fate rests with unfashionable Dundee

The future of the Scottish football season below the elite Premiership appears to rest with Dundee amid confusion over whether they have yet voted in a controversial ballot to determine how the campaign ends amid the coronavirus crisis.

According to the Scottish Professional League, the Championship side gave an “unequivocal instruction” not to count their ballot in a vote designed to close at 1600 GMT on Friday.

Soon afterwards, the SPFL released the results on a resolution that said the three lower leagues would finish in the positions they stood at when play was halted because of the pandemic in March.

A decision on the Scottish Premiership would be taken at a later date if the first proposal was passed.

The Premiership and clubs in League One and Two have backed the plan with the required majority of 75 per cent.

But the second-tier Championship remains finely balanced, with seven clubs having voted for the plan and two against.

Inverness chief executive Scot Gardiner said a representative from Dundee, his former club, had told several Championship rivals they had submitted a ‘no’ vote eight minutes before the suggested deadline.

But SPFL chairman Murdoch MacLennan, in a letter written to clubs on Sunday and later released to the media, insisted he had been told by Dundee to disregard any such vote.

“At 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Friday, that club had confirmed in writing to the SPFL that any attempted vote from that club should not be considered as cast,” a position “reiterated” over the weekend.

Clubs were not obliged to vote on Friday, with regulations meaning they have 28 days in which to cast a ballot following the resolution being announced on Wednesday.

Soon after Gardiner made his comments Rangers, second in the Premiership behind leaders Celtic, urged that SPFL chief executive Neil Doncaster and legal advisor Rod McKenzie both be suspended.

Rangers tabled a resolution last week calling for prize money to be released early to cover financial losses while matches are postponed due to the pandemic.

But their proposal was deemed “not competent” by the SPFL and so was not debated last week.

Rangers interim chairman Douglas Park called for an independent investigation into the SPFL’s “farcical” conduct.

But MacLennan’s letter on Sunday insisted he had received no such request from Park, with the SPFL chief insisting the organisation had “acted wholly properly” throughout.