Raging officials at Fife junior side Kelty Hearts have slammed the SFA after being forced to call off Wednesday night’s glamour fixture with Rangers.
Around 3,000 fans were due to pack into Central Park for the visit of Ally McCoist’s side but the East Super League outfit had to postpone the game on Monday night due to the ongoing saga over the newco’s SFA membership.
The decision is expected to leave Kelty thousands of pounds out of pocket, having already arranged catering facilities and printed tickets and programmes for the big game which was organised some time ago as a testimonial to Kelty stalwart Stefan Winiarski.
Disappointed club treasurer George Mctrusty, who has put dozens of hours into organising the game, said he was dismayed the SFA had not been able to grant the new Rangers a licence to play any matches, friendlies or competitive.
”It’s an absolute disgrace,” he told Courier Sport. ”Rangers have instructed us that an alternative date will be arranged very soon so all tickets and hospitality tickets are still valid for the match, but that’s not the point.
”We are all gutted with all the work done sending tickets out, money spent and time put in by volunteers to make the night a great one, and as you can imagine Stefan is also sick at this outcome.
”We had organised quite a few programmes, although hopefully we can use them when the game is played, but we’ve also wasted the time of the police, who have been a great help to us with their advice.
”I can’t put a figure on how much we’ll lose but I can’t believe this has dragged on so long for everybody and is affecting people at all levels of the game.
”We’re just Kelty Hearts supporters and we just want to play football. It would have been great for the village and the community, with the number of visitors coming into Kelty, but it’s all fallen apart. Scottish football needs to sort itself out.”
Winiarski and Kelty had decided to donate a percentage of the gate money from the game to the Rangers Fans Fighting Fund.
Sky Sports News had also shown an interest in filming the match, but any plans put in place now lie in tatters.
Kelty officials had been poised to instruct workmen to install scaffolding to accommodate TV cameras, although the message from Rangers came through early enough to prevent more money being spent.
While Rangers’ next fixture away to Brechin City in the Ramsdens Cup also remains in doubt, Kelty now have to look forward to an away game of their own at Civil Service Strollers.