The SPFL have asked Hamilton Academical to justify their proposed move to Cumbernauld next season.
The league board have threatened to block a relocation application in response to a hostile fan reaction to the decision to temporarily vacate New Douglas Park and stage future home games at Broadwood.
SPFL rules grant the board discretion on whether to green light the flit from Hamilton to Cumbernauld 14 miles away. And, before accepting the club’s application, league chiefs have asked for assurances and evidence that supporters are behind the move.
The Hamilton Academical Fans Working Group has written to the board of the SPFL urging the league to approve the club’s move to Cumbernauld next season.
Calling the body a ‘cherry picked group of fans’, however, an elected representative of the Hamilton Academical Football Supporters Welfare Organisation welcomed news of a potential intervention by the SPFL and claimed that the majority of supporters are opposed to the move.
Accies were relegated to League One after they failed to overturn 15-point deduction for various rule breaches on appeal.
Embroiled in a lengthy dispute with the owners of New Douglas Park negotiations over the purchase of their home since 2001 failed to secure an agreement.
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Describing their tenancy of New Douglas Park as ‘thoroughly unsatisfactory’ directors have now entered into a binding agreement with North Lanarkshire Council to lease the former home of Clyde for the next two seasons.
Responding to the request from the SPFL to prove that supporters are behind the move to shift the club from their hometown to another, the HAFC Fans Working Group – representing supporters, season ticket holders and club members – have written to the league backing a move they describe as ‘difficult but necessary.’
Club sponsor and lifelong supporter David Equi disputed that take on recent events and welcomed the news of a potential intervention by the SPFL.
“I think the SPFL are doing a good thing. I know that local councillors have written to the SPFL and that we are in the process of setting up a new supporters body and electing people into different positions at an AGM on June 4.
“This supposed group backing the move is a cherry picked group of fans by the board who are completely unrepresentative of the general supporters’ fanbase and I think it’s outrageous.
“If the board can muster half a dozen supporters genuinely in favour of this move to Broadwood then they’ll be lucky.
“I am meeting one of the supporters involved in this group next week and made it clear that he is more than welcome to come to our AGM and put his views across.
“But the idea that they are supposed to be a fans’ working group is nonsense so far as I am concerned.
“And if the SPFL are thinking of vetoing this move to Cumbernauld then I think it’s great that they are actually listening.”
