Banks o’ Dee co-boss Jamie Watt feels a 24-point deduction for a player registration error was harsh – but says they will rebuild their season.
Dee were hammered with the penalty by the Breedon Highland League this week, due to an administrative mistake which saw one ineligible player named in their match-day squad for eight league games.
The issue was initially spotted after Dee beat Turriff United 4-0 in the Scottish Cup first round last month – a competition they had previously been removed from as a result of the blunder.
In response to news about the hefty league punishment – with rules requiring a mandatory three-point deduction per league game an unregistered player features in – the Spain Park club said they were “devastated”, with the penalty overshadowing their impressive start to life as a Highland League outfit.
They now sit bottom of the league on -1 points and are without a game this weekend, due to Lossiemouth’s participation in the Highland League Cup.
‘That’s where the fatal error happened’
The player referenced above did not play in all eight league games, with being an unused substitute enough to qualify as featuring in a match while ineligible.
It is understood the problem with this player’s registration occurred when the Scottish FA’s registration system did not initially flag up the individual – a summer signing – was still registered to another club outside of the Highland League.
When an email was later sent to Dee flagging up the issue, it was missed and they were unaware there was a problem until late September.
While Watt feels the punishment is harsh, he says Dee will take it on the chin and regroup.
“We tried to submit his registration and it went through on the SFA website,” he said. “That was probably the first part of the process that failed, because it’s normally meant to show up that you can’t sign him as he’s registered to another club.
“But it went through on July 1 and I think, within a matter of hours, the SFA sent an email back to say he couldn’t be registered at that time.
“That’s where the fatal error happened as the email was missed – the chairman said on that day there was more than 100 emails had come in and there was nothing significant about this particular one.
“It didn’t come to light until after the week where we played Forres in the league, that the player wasn’t registered.
“We contacted who we needed to and that started with getting taken out of the Scottish Cup.
“We pretty much knew there’d be repercussions from the league as he’d played in some games before we got him registered.
“We appealed on the basis he’d not played in three of the games and we were expecting a six or seven-point penalty.
“Rules are rules, but we feel it’s harsh to hit us with such a big penalty – I don’t see the logic in it myself.
“I understand we’ve made the error, but we’ve not done it deliberately.
“It’s a tough one to take and I’m gutted for the chairman and secretary, because they work so hard and have so much to do with moving up a league.
“We just need to accept it. For me, nothing changes, we’ve still got goals and we start again.”
‘The boys have reacted really well’
Watt has spoken to the player and said the squad were in good spirits for their midweek training sessions.
“There’s no blame attached to him,” he added. “I’ve spoken to him and he’s a bit gutted. He’s just been the unlucky party in it.
“The boys have reacted really well. There was a lot of disappointment and disbelief, but we’ve known for the last couple of weeks something was going to happen.
“I told them on Monday night, because I knew the announcement was happening. I wasn’t expecting it to be as extreme as it was, but they were ready for it.”
Dee had taken 23 points from their opening 12 games and had lost just once, against Brora Rangers in August.
“The positive is we’ve got plenty of time to react and try push up the table,” said Watt. “We’ll regroup and fingers crossed we can climb a few places quite quickly.”