With money pouring out of the game there is a growing pool of players still looking for work

Richard Wilson

Sports writer

Tuesday 24 July 2012

The money falling out of Scottish football is being replaced with uncertainty.

Dean Shiels still finds himself without a deal

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Richard Wilson

Most footballers are familiar with the anxiety of pre-season, when free agents are left to wonder where the next contract is coming from, but the feeling is more widespread this summer. The financial consequences of the departure of Rangers from the Scottish Premier League are now the cause of a raft of players being left in limbo.

Garry Kenneth, the former Dundee United defender, has been training on his own, and had played for Airdrie United in a bounce match against Rangers. Alan Maybury, last of St Johnstone, and Mark Kerr, who spent a spell at Dunfermline Athletic last season, were both training with Hibernian but the club is not in a position to offer anything long-term. Dean Shiels has also been working with the Kilmarnock squad, but there is no money to offer him a deal at the Rugby Park club.The scenario is common. All the SPL clubs need to be more frugal since there is no indication yet how much the broadcast deal with Sky and the other commercial contracts will be affected by the absence of Rangers. Kilmarnock have made only two signings this summer – the former St Mirren full-back, Jeroen Tesselaar and Rory Boulding, a striker from Livingston – and do not expect to be able to bring in any more. Hearts were embarking on cost-cutting anyway, but one of the advantages of appointing John McGlynn as manager was his experience working with young players, since several will be promoted from the youth teams.Even established players, whose recent exploits would normally be enough to ensure they were signed up quickly, have had to be patient. Ian Black and Craig Beattie both left Hearts as Scottish Cup winners, and were linked with Rangers when the Ibrox club might have been playing in the first division, but both now remain unattached."The uncertainty over the past several months has had a knock-on effect," says Stuart Lovell of the Professional Footballers' Association Scotland. "I don't think the clubs can be blamed for that, they are the victims of circumstances. Clearly you would expect clubs to err on the side of caution, since they do not know if their budgets are going to be obliterated or tweaked. The fact that plenty of senior pros who ordinarily you would have expected to find clubs are still available is an indication of the current financial situation. It's a very difficult time."The players have to hold their nerves. There are plenty of clubs willing to let them join pre-season training routines, but the reality is that they are victims of time and place. All the SPL clubs will have to cut their budgets and there is the threat of redundancies for back office staff at some teams. The wage budget for players will also be affected."We've assisted a number of players in negotiating with a new club or renegotiating with their current club and the common denominator is reduced salaries," Lovell says. "There's no doubt that clubs are paying less than they were even five years ago. But the numbers game is similar. They can trim from 25 to 20 or from 20 to 18 but the average wage in your budget that has to come down."PFA Scotland have attempted to assist out-of-contract players by listing details – by position – on the available players section of their website. Most footballers still rely on their agents to find them new clubs, but the union wants players themselves to become more proactive. If there is a parallel to the current situation, it would be when broadcaster Setanta went out of business three years ago, leaving Scottish clubs struggling to maintain their financial commitments."The knock-on effect of the Setanta deal was that money clubs had budgeted for disappeared overnight," Lovell says. "There are certainly parallels and clubs are going to have to be creative with their budgets."The players, too, are going to have to be ready to wait, but also accept the new reality of Scottish football. There is less to spend, so everybody has to lower their expectations.

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With money pouring out of the game there is a growing pool of players still looking for work

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