Falkirk chairman Martin Ritchie believes the Scottish Football Association must step in and save league reconstruction talks.
Yesterday's decision by the St Mirren and Ross County to vote against plans for the proposed 12-12-18 set-up looks to ended hopes of a new dawn for the Scottish game.
Had the top-flight Scottish Premier League reached its required 11-1 majority in favour the plans, the Scottish Football League was due to poll its 29 full-member clubs on Friday.
But with the 10-2 result following St Mirren and Ross County's no votes, the SFL will no longer hold its own ballot, which would have required 23 clubs to back proposals that also included measures for a merged league body and a fairer share of cash.
Ritchie now says his view is that the reconstruction bid is dead in the water unless the SFA can intervene.
He said: "I think the last few days have shown that we will never have a proposal that will satisfy 11 SPL clubs and 23 SFL clubs at the same time.
"If you have that situation then it's a stalemate and nothing can change unless the SFA step in and force through change.
"At the moment, I feel it's no longer to do with what's on the table. It's now very unlikely that anything that is proposed will get the necessary numbers to agree to it.
"So I think reconstruction is a non-event now.
"I'm not sure if we are at the point yet where the SFA has to step in but I don't see any other way of this going through, to be honest.
"What we need to do is wait and see what happens over the next few days. The SFL board are to meet this week and hopefully we will know more after that.
"We are now just going to sit back and see what comes out from the SPL and the SFL in the next few days and perhaps next week get together with the other First Division clubs and see what the way forward might be."
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