Elgin City chairman Graham Tatters feels discussions over league reconstruction are distracting from the most critical matter of ensuring the survival of Scottish clubs.
The 15-strong league reconstruction working group held a “positive and constructive” first meeting on Monday according to Hamilton chairman Les Gray, with the group reconvening again tomorrow.
Given the threat to the future of clubs through a lack of revenue during the coronavirus shutdown, and the possibility of social distancing limiting the capacity of grounds when football does return, Tatters feels the talk over reconfiguring the leagues is premature.
Tatters said: “I understand where everybody is coming from, I’ve got sympathy for them all.
“The bottom line is that we are trying to do something when we don’t know what the eventual outcome is from where we are at the moment.
“I don’t think we should be doing anything until we know which direction football is going to go, and how many clubs are going to survive this.
“We could be telling Brora and Kelty to come in, but we end up with two or three clubs going out of business – so why are we changing things?
“At the moment there is absolutely no stability at all.
“People are dying all over the place and we are talking about reconstruction of the league.
“I don’t know if every club in the leagues will survive – so reconstruction might take care of itself.”
The working group is being jointly chaired by Hearts owner Ann Budge, whose side stand to be relegated if the Premiership season is declared over.
Budge has already hinted at a temporary solution being implemented, which Tatters reckons would be impractical.
He added: “Everybody knows why we are doing it, and it’s nothing to do with anything else other than to get Hearts to survive.
“I have got no problem with that, because they could still have kept their place in the league.
“I understand totally where Ann Budge is coming from – I’ve got no problem at all with her trying to defend her corner.
“She has said it could be temporary. If they bring two teams in from non-league football, what’s going to happen if they go back, and they kick two teams back to the Lowland League and Highland League? That would go down well, wouldn’t it?”
Tatters stopped short of saying Elgin would oppose any league reconstruction proposal, adding: “You can’t just sit on your high horse and refuse to accept anything, because you’ve got an opinion on it.
“I’m not daft – but at this moment my board of directors at Elgin City don’t think it’s the time to be discussing league reconstruction until we have some stability and direction, and find out what’s going to happen with football itself.”
