League not involved

THE SCOTTISH League will monitor the situation concerning Hearts and Hibs but will not answer any of the major questions which arise from it until the governing body knows precisely what it is dealing with, according to their secretary, Peter Donald.

The secretary has been in his post for only a matter of weeks, but is faced with what conid be termed a constitutional crisis requiring the setting up of an extraordinary general meeting.

"At the moment, what we have is a business proposal between two clubs and the Scottish League can not pre-empt anything by commenting at this stage, said Donald.

The obvious questions concerning the Scottish League revolve around the complement of the Premier Division and what to do about the size of the Scottish League itself in the event of there being only one Edinburgh club in the top ten where once there were two.

Dundee, for instance, must wonder if their demotion to the First Division at the end of the season just past will now apply if the Premier Division is left one club short. Angus Cook, the Dens Park chairman, also declined to comment yesterday but it would be reasonable to assume his fingers and toes are firmly crossed.

Readmission to the top ten would help alleviate the considerable financial repercussions of relegation for a full-time club like "Dundee, who put a dozen players on the open-to-offers list when their demotion was formalised. Since then, only one, the goalkeeper, Bobby Geddes, has been sold to Kilmarnock, for £100,000.

On the other hand, Airdrie, who finished as runners-up in the First Division to the promoted club, St Johnstone, might harbour hopes of gaining the ultimate reward for going full-time and spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on improving their team.

Airdrie are also one of those clubs whose present ground, Broomfield, is under consideration as a possible site for redevelopment with the club moving to a custom-built stadium elsewhere in the town.

The other matter to be faced by the Scottish League in the event of Hearts taking over Hibs would be the knock-on effect caused by having 37 instead of 38 clubs making up the Scottish League's total membership.

The prominent clubs in the Highland League, most notably Inverness Caledonian, have long campaigned for that region to have a representative at senior level.

Inverness Caledonian eliminated Airdrie from the Scottish Cup last season and spoke then about its being time to recognise the advancements made in that part of the country.

The main obstacle to that happening has always been assumed to be the geographical isolation of the Highland League clubs and the not inconsiderable expense that would need to be borne by clubs who are hardly wealthy to begin with in having to fulfil their fixtures against them.

All of these matters would seem likely to require an extraordinary general meeting of the Scottish League, who must shortly have next season's fixtures prepared by computer for the benefit of the pools

Any takeover, too, would first have to be sanctioned by the Scottish League Management Committee, therefore everything else is speculation until that happens.