Ross County manager Malky Mackay has questioned why the Staggies’ own Covid outbreak during the summer saw them face different consequences to Hibernian this week.
County’s meeting with Hibs has been called off twice within the last week, with Saturday’s initial fixture postponed after the Easter Road club identified two positive cases and a number of close contacts on the morning of the game.
The Victoria Park encounter was quickly rescheduled for Wednesday, however, Hibs recorded further positive tests which resulted in them still being unable to field a side.
A new date of November 24 has now been set for the rearranged match, which will go ahead at the third time of asking.
That contrasts with the situation County found themselves in during their own Covid outbreak in July, when they had to forfeit their Premier Sports Cup ties against Forfar Athletic and Dundee when they could not raise a team.
That resulted in County being eliminated from the competition before a ball was kicked, and Mackay is keen for consistency to be applied between both SPFL competitions.
He said: “I’m not putting anybody at fault, but I’m frustrated that in pre-season we were in the exact same boat.
“We lost two games by default, which didn’t allow us to proceed to the later stages of the League Cup. That turns into big, serious money for this football club.
“The exact same has happened in the league, and it has just reissued fixtures.
“I understand why, because the competitions have got different rules. The SPFL can make decisions on one, and the other has to go to an appeal at the SFA, which happened last year with Kilmarnock and St Mirren.
“When you look at fairness, that’s not fair as far as we are concerned. On behalf of Ross County, we just look for parity.
“Hopefully come next summer we are not talking about Covid any longer, but, should that be the case, rules should be looked at concerning parity in both competitions.
“It should either be one thing or the other for both competitions.
“People talked about Celtic coming back from Dubai last season, but it was us who were really affected by the League Cup. I think that needs to be looked at in the future.”
The Hibs match will be County’s next game following Sunday’s trip to Rangers, and Mackay is pleased the match has been promptly rescheduled.
He added: “It’s good to get that date in as quickly as possible, because December is a really piled up group of fixtures.
“Taking that into January, you can throw in the possibility of games being off through weather, and even other clubs having issues with Covid.”
Preparation for Ibrox will not be affected
Mackay is confident the last few days will not have a disruptive effect on County’s preparation for Sunday’s trip to Ibrox.
He added: “We had them in on the Sunday morning and we trained as normal going into the four-day build-up for what was going to be the Wednesday night.
“They just worked as if they were going to play Hibs on Wednesday and just got on with it.
“The game was hanging by a thread on Tuesday, and then it was off a few hours later.
“We contacted the players, cleared the decks and gave everyone the day off on Wednesday just to hit the reset button after preparing to play Hibs twice.
“We were back in on Thursday and that’s forgotten about – it’s straight on to thinking about Rangers.”
