Aberdeen chairman Dave Cormack remains supportive of Hearts counterpart Ann Budge’s proposal for a 14-team Scottish Premiership but says he will not back any move to put a new structure in place for the next five years.
Neil Doncaster, the SPFL chief executive, has written to all 22 Premiership and Championship clubs asking if they would back a proposal for a 14-14-14 being put in place until 2025 with clubs asked to respond by 5pm today.
League 1 and 2 clubs are expected to be asked to give their feedback next week.
The five-year plan has come as a surprise to Dons chairman Cormack and he has made it clear he does not support it.
He said: “We just heard about it (on Wednesday). The SPFL are still meeting with the different leagues and what we have to do is wait and see what comes out.
“We have been very clear from day one that we have been very sympathetic with Hearts, Partick Thistle and Stranraer. With Kelty and Brora, we at Aberdeen would love to see a pyramid all the way down where two teams get relegated from Division Two every season because that would promote competition.
“There are 48 variations of what people want. The reality is we are at the start of June now and we are meant to be playing games in eight weeks and we are still talking about what the league might look.
“From our standpoint, we would have been up for a 14 team league on a temporary basis for two years but certainly not for five years.”
With Premiership clubs yesterday given the go-ahead to resume training from Thursday, albeit with strict procedures in place, the Dons will begin their preparations for a new campaign which is provisionally due to start on the weekend of August 1 and 2.
The Dons chairman does not expect a busy summer of transfer activity at the club, however.
He said: “As Aberdeen fans will know, we have had a significant number of starters and first-team players out of contract each year.
“Last year we dealt with that and so this year we have no first-team players who are out of contract except Tomas Cerny, our goalkeeper, who we are looking to bring back. We have a full squad of players. There might be some tweaking and tuning but we have a full squad as it is.”
One possible tweak could be a move to bring former Don Jonny Hayes back to the club.
The former Caley Thistle winger is a free agent after his contract with Celtic expired.
Cormack said: “Personally, I love Jonny and he is a wonderful guy. He is still very charitable to the people struggling in Aberdeen and he has said nothing about it.
“We have to wait and see how we get through the next couple of months. Certainly, I haven’t sat down with Derek to see where we are with the squad, but clearly Jonny is a player that I am a fan of.
“I love Jonny and the fans to also, so we will need to see.”