Dunfermline director of football Jim Leishman has held crisis talks with the club’s players to reassure them they will be paid the wages they are due.
The Pars squad were shocked to discover on Tuesday that they would only be receiving 60% of February’s salary. The news was delivered via a text message from manager Jim McIntyre.
The move is being blamed, at least partially, on a shortfall in the club budget caused by Rangers’ collapse into administration. The Ibrox club failed to pay £84,000 owed to Dunfermline for ticket money.
Leishman and chief executive Bill Hodgins met the players on Thursday morning to explain the situation and to confirm this was just a temporary problem.
Leishman said: ”The players got 60% of their wage today and on Monday they will get a further 20% and then the remainder will get paid that’s what the players were told.
”I think the most important thing about the meeting was communication, to explain the circumstances, talking to the players and letting them know where we are.
”Looking at it from the football point of view, I thought the players were magnificent today. Their co-operation was first class and they now have an understanding as to why this has happened.
”I think if we have learned anything it is that we need to communicate just that little bit quicker. The players have been told this is a short-term problem and I have no reason to doubt that at this moment in time.
”I think everyone realises it is a difficult time for the game in this country.”
Leishman refused to place all the blame for Dunfermline’s predicament at the door of financially-stricken Rangers, citing a whole host of issues which have caused the big hole in their operating budget.
He said: ”Rangers have enough problems just now without us criticising them but the money they are due us is part of it. We had, unfortunately, the Kilmarnock game being postponed and then we had quite a lot of storm damage. You have to pay that money out to get things fixed before games can be played.
”There are two or three things that have accumulated but it’s only a short-term problem. After the game on Saturday, the players will get a further 20% and then as quickly as we can, the finance department have guaranteed that they will get paid up in full.”
Following Saturday’s crucial SPL encounter with Motherwell, Dunfermline do not have a match for three weeks but Leishman insisted that despite the subsequent lack of cash flow, the no-wage scenario will not happen again.
And he also stressed that no-one at the club had even mentioned the grim possibility of Dunfermline going into administration.