Darren Young reckons a firm statement from SPFL chief Neil Doncaster is the only way to stop the tit-for-tat verbals in Scottish football.
The former Aberdeen midfielder, now manager of East Fife, believes it requires strong leadership for the game in Scotland to stop being viewed as a laughing stock.
Several clubs have made critical statements over the last week, surrounding the matter of an independent investigation into the SPFL and the manner of the season in the lower leagues being ended.
A lot of it stems from the proposal the SPFL put forward to bring the season in the Championship, League One and League Two, which was disputed for many clubs for how it negatively impacted them. However, it was ultimately passed, after Dundee changed their vote from a no to a yes, after their original submission got stuck in a quarantined email folder.
All of this has painted Scottish football in a negative light, which Young attributes to the rush to finish the season. However he hopes a firm decision from Doncaster could allow clubs to move on.
Young said: “People have said their piece and whether it’s going to stop there, probably not. For me, it’s got to come to (Neil) Doncaster and say ‘this is it, end of’.
“For me, he’s got to come out and say the season has ended and this is what’s happening. If we get a start-back date, he can turn round to clubs and say ‘this is what we’re doing’. It should be a case of moving on – I don’t think there’s anything we can do to change it now.
“Scottish football has got a bad enough reputation down in England and for everything to go the way it went, it’s even more of a laughing stock now.
“Hopefully they can learn from it and move on, because the way they’ve done it isn’t great for anybody.”
Young’s club East Fife were not directly disadvantaged by the decision to end the season, despite being in with a chance of making the League One play-offs.
He added: “We’d been in the play-offs for most of the season. When the lockdown came, we ended up being out of the play-offs – we’d been out of them for five days all season.
“It was frustrating and I think it’s an extra £2,500 for finishing up a position. We’d have loved to continue but at the end of the day it is about health. It just seemed to me a bit of a rush job (to end the season), without thinking what could and couldn’t happen.
“We’ve kept ourselves to ourselves, put our vote down and that’s it. We’ve not been directly affected by it. We voted against stopping it and were happy to wait. But you’ll see with a few teams that don’t have much to say because they’re not directly affected by it.
“All the ones that are directly affected are probably making the most noise and rightly so, because I think we’d probably be in the same position if it was us. Particularly if it’s going to cost your club.”