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'SPFL postponement will cause financial turmoil' - Mulraney

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Mulraney became Scottish FA vice-president in June 2019Image source, SNS Group Gary Hutchison
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Mulraney became Scottish FA vice-president in June 2019

Scottish FA vice-president Mike Mulraney fears the postponement of the football season could lead to financial turmoil throughout the SPFL.

The Scottish football season was delayed until further notice on Friday, because of the coronavirus outbreak.

And while Mulraney supports the decision, but he expects it to have grave consequences for Scotland's football clubs.

"Our job is to mitigate the impact on football," said the Alloa chairman.

"I think many, many businesses in Scotland are going to have huge, huge financial challenges.

"That's my duty as the chairman of Alloa Athletic and I'm obviously the vice-president of the Scottish FA.

"I don't want to predict the demise of any football club. I can predict incredible financial turmoil for football."

While the SPFL and Scottish FA are following guidance from the Scottish government and examples set by Uefa, the governing bodies have warned that there is no financial compensation available to clubs that will struggle without match-going fans.

Mulraney appreciates that more than most, as Alloa sit third bottom of the Scottish Championship. Yet the club chairman believes this unprecedented situation demanded difficult decisions.

"We've got lots of difficult decisions and we'll make the difficult decisions," said Mulraney. "We made one this morning. We've made other ones already.

"There will be more made but within the context of what's going on in our country and what's going on in Europe and the world that is not the most important thing that is going to happen in our society this summer.

"We'll make those decisions. We're confident we will. That will be an SPFL decision to make that will surely be supported by all of the clubs. This is bigger than football and we've got to do our little bit."