Motherwell have been told they will not get the chance to speak to potential managerial candidate Simo Valakari until the Finnish season ends.
The former Well and Derby midfielder has declared an interest in a return to Fir Park to replace the sacked Ian Baraclough and claimed his club would not be hard to deal with.
Valakari is among the names interesting Motherwell but the 42-year-old's team, SJK, are top of the Finnish league with two matches left.
And his club have stated they will not be open to any deal until after their season ends on October 25.
SJK chairman Raimo Sarajarvi told the website of Finnish newspaper, Iltalehti: "We will not negotiate anything before the season is over.
"If someone wants to negotiate before it, then we will not be the source of anything.
"We have two years left in the agreement. All parties know where they stand.
"Motherwell are no greater club than we are. It is the starting point."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here