JIM JEFFERIES last night said David Longmuir, the chief executive of the Scottish Football League, should "hold his head in shame" after Dunfermline Athletic were relegated from the Irn-Bru First Division.
The Fifers were deducted 15 points by the SFL in April after entering administration, causing them to drop from mid-table into a fight to avoid finishing in the relegation play-offs. Dunfermline also made many players redundant in a bid to cut costs, while a ban on signing anyone over 21 until the end of the year at the earliest was imposed.
Jefferies, speaking after a 3-1 aggregate play-off defeat by Alloa Athletic, singled out Longmuir – who he spoke to before yesterday's game – for putting his club into a fight they were not equipped to deal with.
"I let him know my feelings," he said. "I wasn't pleased with his answer, which was that he was only the messenger. That's a terrible thing to say. He is the head of the football league. He was part of it. They should never have taken that decision. The damage was done with David Longmuir and a committee sitting in a meeting.
"The supporters and players don't deserve that, they are the ones that ultimately get punished. It's not the owner that suffers. We've lost all of our players; is that not bad enough? All these boys have been asked to do an impossible job. I think the people on that committee and David Longmuir should hold their heads in shame."
Jefferies also criticised the club's administrator, Bryan Jackson, claiming he did not do enough to defend the East End Park side. He added: "I've had this bottled up inside me and I didn't want to detract from what they players have been doing. I would have said this even if we had survived.
"I also think the administrator here should have contested it more; the league took advantage of that. I should have been there, or someone on good authority, to fight our case. I'm not against clubs getting punished, but there are other ways of doing it."
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