Former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan has filleted SPFL chief Neil Doncaster for “presiding over a debacle” as he warned of a Hearts’ financial shakedown of Scottish football.
The Jambos have got the ball rolling on legal action over their relegation from the Premiership following the early end to the Scottish season.
Monday’s collapse of last ditch reconstruction talks sealed their fate along with that of Partick Thistle in the Championship and Stranraer a further division down.
Ex-Palace chief Jordan says Hearts are going to shake Scottish football to its boots in a bid for compensation over the £5million they claim relegation has cost.
And he described the SPFL’s handling of the situation ‘keystone cops’.
It’s the latest chapter in a furious fallout in Scottish football which was sparked by the SPFL resolution vote to end the season back in April - a poll mired in controversy after Dundee’s initial vote went missing only to return with a different outcome five days later.
Asked how the whole fallout is likely to end, Jordan told talkSPORT: “It’s a tough one. Nobody seems to be operating with a great deal of clarity or cohesive or cogent thinking.
“I like Neil Doncaster. I always thought he was a strange fit going up there.
“But not withstanding it - you are presiding over a debacle.
“How you have allowed this to happen on your watch. How you have allowed a ridiculous situation like voting criterias to be so ambiguous is beyond me.”
Hearts confirmed on Monday that legal action was underway when only 16 of 42 SPFL clubs backed their call for a 14 team top flight.
Jordan said Tynecastle supremo Ann Budge won’t stop until she has all 41 clubs on the stand to reveal how they voted as she bids for leverage to draw down compensation.
He said: “This is a case where 41 clubs are going to be pulled into a situation where there’s an allegation of breach of process which is the real issue.
“That is that the vote which cemented the fate of these clubs, specifically Hearts, is a vote which was not properly conducted and gave an outcome which was not representative of the situation and leverage was applied.
“They’re not going to like this but I see this as a legal shakedown.
“They are going to shake Scottish football to its boots.
“They are not going to get what they want and quite frankly the idea which might have saved it all - a reformation of the leagues - was laughable in the first place because I don’t understand the logic behind the restructuring and I also don’t understand why initially it was put forward as a temporary restructure.
“How convenient that would be when teams got to stay up when it was temporary. I find the whole thing a bit unedifying.
“But what I think is going to happen, is that Hearts are going to find a way to put 41 other clubs on the stand if it gets that far to say ‘how did you vote?’
“To get to a situation where legally someone is going to believe these clubs or not. Because if they get 41 other clubs on the stand and they give the prerequisite answers to the questions of their reasons for voting the way they did then I don’t see how Hearts’ argument stands up.
“The process was flawed in the first place. When you call these votes then first of all they should have 28 days to submit their answers and secondly the very nature of them - the absurd scenario that Neil Doncaster allowed to happen with Dundee’s vote going into the ether … I think this is a shakedown.
“It will be about leveraging Scottish football to say to Hearts you have to be paid compensation here.”
Jordan continued: “Some of the stuff Ann Budge has been absolutely first class. She was one of the few people who had the foresight to say in players’ contracts that in a crisis like this you get 50 per cent of your salary.
“Well done you - the rest of football could learn from that.
“She has bankrolled her club but that club is also held together by a lot of financial contribution of the Freedom of Hearts.
“If Hearts have 18,000 - 19,000 fans last season then those fans represent £5million in gate receipts - that’s part of the claim - a loss of revenue from Scottish broadcasters is another part of the claim.
“So I think it’s about leverage of the other clubs to say ‘sorry guys we are going to put pressure on you because none of you want to see us disrupt the whole system.
“But perhaps it doesn’t disrupt it because what we have seen here is like the keystone cops.”
