The fallout from the increasingly bitter efforts to end the football season in Scotland intensified Saturday when Partick Thistle said it had been “forgotten, ignored and patronised” after attempts to restructure the league collapsed due to top-flight opposition.
After the Scottish 2019/20 campaign at all levels below the Premiership was cancelled, a task force was established to look at creating a new three-division system.
But the plan failed to attract sufficient support at a meeting of Premiership clubs on Friday.
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Had proposals for the top two leagues to increase to 14 teams each been passed, Partick, bottom of the second tier, would have avoided relegation.
The Glasgow club issued a furious statement on Saturday that said: “The Partick Thistle board is deeply angered by the decision to halt league reconstruction,” adding it was a “disgrace” the news had been made public before clubs could inform their players and staff.
Partick became the latest club to criticise the conduct of the Scottish Professional Football League, with the Jags insisting they had been subjected to treatment “unprecedented in Scottish football”.
“We have been forgotten, ignored and patronised while senior figures, for reasons best known to themselves, have scuppered a potential solution that did the least harm,” their statement added.
On Friday, Rangers managing director Stewart Robertson was accused of making “baseless, damaging and self-serving attacks” by his fellow SPFL board members.
The other eight SPFL directors have issued a lengthy rebuttal of a number of allegations made in a dossier Rangers sent to clubs on Thursday.
They said they had “complete confidence” in chief executive Neil Doncaster and legal advisor Rod McKenzie, both of whom the Ibrox club want suspended.
The board members again urged clubs to reject Rangers' call for an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the vote that ended the lower-league season and handed the SPFL board the authority to do the same for the Premiership.
The 12 Premiership clubs and Championship winners Dundee United are due to meet on Tuesday.
Rangers were 13 points adrift of leaders Celtic when the Premiership season was suspended in March due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Celtic would be awarded a record-equalling ninth consecutive title if the SPFL board deemed no more games could be played.
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