As the temperature rises in the ongoing saga of above, it should be made clear to all St Mirren supporters that Stewart Gilmour met with Charles Green, Alistair McCoist and other representatives of Rangers Newco last week.
I made it perfectly clear that our Directors view was that our club would not be voting for a Newco entry to the SPL, directly to the officials of Rangers Newco. This meeting was held in confidential circumstances to allow both parties to enable the other to see there respective positions. A very positive meeting was held, however, the position of St Mirren has not changed and our stance of sporting integrity was maintained against the very pressing commercial arguments.
Regrettably, the commercial and hence financial impact is still not clear to the club, we are very hopeful that this aspect will become clearer in the next few days. This will play a major part in the decision making for the Board of Directors as to the way forward for the club in the short term.
We are obviously hoping that our commercial and television partners stay with the league through this very difficult period. It has been impossible for the clubs to downsize as quickly as we would like, due to the contractual obligations of the club, these are considerable and must be maintained to ensure the club does not slip into the fate of others.
It is possible that major cutbacks may have to be made within the company, this may well involve people in the club losing their employment, not a good situation, so please accept that the club will be unlikely to be signing any new players until this situation is clear. Naturally we hope that if our partners mentioned above do not invoke exit clauses in their contracts we would not have to go down this route. The decision on those matters is outwith the control of the club, let us hope that the possible scenarios are not as severe as they could possibly be and that we show those partners our support to convince them to support Scottish Football.
As events unfold this may be an opportunity for real change in Scottish Football, St Mirren shall throw their weight totally behind a 16 team league structured in a similar way to the Belgium system with a large number of crossover games at the end of the season to determine Relegation, European places and Champions. This with a change in the distribution model would allow us to look after the interests of all full time teams in the country on a football and financial basis. With a ten team league below this for aspiring SPL clubs and a pyramid system beneath that, this would allow all clubs to develop and find their place in Scottish Football.
The poll conducted has confirmed the opinion of the Board, which has enabled us to confirm our position publicly, in addition a sixteen team top league has been the fans expressed view and this now may be possible to rebuild a solid future for Scottish Football, Scottish Football Clubs and its Supporters.