CONFUSION continues to reign down on the matter concerning why Raith Rovers were in their words forced to play an outfield player, namely Ryan Stevenson, against Ayr United on Tuesday night.
The Scottish Professional Football League yesterday reacted strongly to criticism aimed their way by John Hughes, the manager of the Fife club, who said they should be “embarrassed” that they did not allow the match to the postponed.
Raith Rovers were left with no fit keepers because Kevin Cuthbert, Aaron Lennox and Connor Brennan were all carrying injuries ahead of the 1-0 defeat to Ayr in which midfielder Stevenson actually played quite well at Somerset Park
However, the SPFL insisted that Raith and Hughes made a mistake and, in fact, they were within their right to bring in an emergency loan.
"Raith Rovers had a number of options open to them once their only fit goalkeeper was injured," the SPFL said in a statement.
"They could have brought in an under-21 goalkeeper, or an out-of-contract goalkeeper of any age, in each case without any permission from the SPFL board. They could also have sought permission from the SPFL board to bring in a goalkeeper of any age on an emergency basis.
"All of these options were explained to Raith Rovers, who chose to do none of these things and instead requested a postponement on the day of the match."
If Raith were aware of this then the embarrassment would be on Hughes who still had time to sign someone for a game after a deal to take Celtic’s Logan Bailly on that emergency loan collapsed late on Monday night.
"The goalkeeper situation is diabolical and it's an embarrassment for Scottish football," said an angry Hughes. "No doubt they will try and turn it around on Raith Rovers.
"I played against a Hearts team last year with three goalkeepers with the flu and they called it off. We have two goalkeepers with surgery and the other one is getting a scan and they forced us to play it.
"I just hope Scottish football and the powers that be are embarrassed and for the best of Scottish football they put things in place to make sure it doesn't happen again.
"We tried hard to get a goalkeeper. It's important people know the rules: we've got four over-age loans so that restricts us; we can't do cross-borders so that restricts us.
"They will all dive for cover. (SPFL chief executive) Neil Doncaster will come out and say he felt we had ample time to get a goalkeeper in.
"What Hearts did was they left it right to the last minute when the guy was on the bus. Maybe we should have done that, maybe we shouldn't have been up front and honest, and just ducked and dived a bit, and said: 'Oh by the way, see the goalie we thought was fit, he's away for a scan, he's not fit, and there's no time to get another goalie.' That's what Hearts did.
"I can remember last year when Hearts pulled out, I phoned up Iain Blair and Iain Blair says 'nothing I can do'. He should have a right good look at himself because he has let Scottish football down."
As for Stevenson, who definitely did nothing wrong, he said: “I didn't want to let the boys down and I suppose it's something I can tick off the bucket list. Hopefully, it's something I'll not be repeating again."
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