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Gardiner: Inverness Caley Thistle could not relegate another club by voting yes to SPFL proposals


By Will Clark

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Chief executive Scot Gardiner says Caley Thistle voted against SPFL proposals to finish the season.
Chief executive Scot Gardiner says Caley Thistle voted against SPFL proposals to finish the season.

Inverness Caledonian Thistle chief executive Scot Gardiner says they could not vote yes to the SPFL proposals to finish the Championship, League One and League Two seasons which would have led to clubs being relegated.

Mr Gardiner spoke on BBC Radio Scotland show Sportsound on Saturday afternoon confirming the reasons why Caley Thistle voted against proposals to finish the season.

Caley Thistle along with Partick Thistle's vote to reject the proposals have been confirmed with the votes of seven other clubs in the league accepting the proposals with eight clubs in the Championship required to agree for the proposals to go through.

Mr Gardiner also claimed on radio he had seen a signed voting slip from Dundee which rejected the proposals.

But the SPFL have said they have not received Dundee's vote which leaves the fate of the season in the balance.

If passed, the proposals could lead to Partick Thistle relegated to League One and Stranraer to League Two.

Hearts could also be relegated to the Championship if the Premiership season can not be completed if the resolution goes through, which recommends to try and finish the top flight season.

But Gardiner said from Caley Thistle's point of view, they could not agree to proposals which would cause harm to other clubs.

"We could not relegate Hearts, Partick Thistle and Stranraer or anyone for that matter," he said.

"We only wanted one thing to happen, to distribute the money to the clubs that are obviously in real trouble as are businesses all over the UK.

"It was fundamentally wrong to conflate the promotion and relegation with receiving the funds, which are the club’s funds.

"They are our fees and we did not see why that had to be conflated and I’m still flabbergasted.

"We could not countenance a situation where we could take a vote which would lead to redundancies at Hearts and Partick Thistle on Monday morning and goodness knows what at Stranraer."

If the proposals go through, the Championship standings would be decided on a points per game basis along with the play-offs being scrapped.

Caley Thistle were in second place in the Championship and in the top play-off spot when the league was suspended on March 13.

Gardiner says the club's decision was not based on self preservation, stating their no vote will prevent them receiving £330,000 being paid to them next week.

"We have heard it said from other clubs, individuals and pundits that this was self serving as we were in second place," he said.

"It is a valid position that people would think that we are looking after ourselves.

"But we are furloughing our staff and had an AGM where we worked hard to turn Caley Thistle around revenue wise.

"We are not on our knees, but we have one knee down, if we voted yes, we would have received £330,000 for being in second place.

"This was not an easy decision as we have one knee down, we voted out of principle that we could not relegate another club."

Dundee's vote which has not yet been confirmed will decide if the SPFL proposal will go through.

But Gardiner says he has seen the signed voting slip from Dundee saying no which would lead to the proposals not going through.

"Partick Thistle were the first to vote no at 14.52 on Friday.

"At 16.24 we received Dundee's voting slip signed and dated.

"At 16.39 I signed our voting slip and submitted our vote.

"At 16.24 when we saw Dundee’s voting slip they also sent their statement which was published on their website at 5.03pm.

"At 16.52 we got a message from Dundee's club secretary saying DFC vote submitted."

"Then we went through the rabbit hole.

"Our only thoughts was we had no problems with anyone else voting any other way. But we could not do this to another club.

"We received various text messages saying Dundee’s vote hadn’t been received."

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