AVOIDING relegation is the aim for Fraser Duncan now after his Sauchie side were hit with a 15-point deduction by the Scottish FA.
The club were handed a substantial deduction for fielding ineligible players during the first couple months of the season.
This sends Sauchie crashing down to the bottom of the East of Scotland Premier Division, while their points are handed out to the teams they have beaten.
Advertiser Sport spoke with Duncan to discuss the position this leaves the club in and how they will be going forward.
“It’s wipes out everything,” he said. “All the hard work that we’ve put in so far has been wiped out.
“We appealed it, my first reaction was I wasn’t expecting anything else, it’s very disappointing.
“But for now, I’m over it completely. I don’t want to hear it again, the only concentration for me now is the club doesn’t get relegated.”
Sauchie put out a club statement on Friday evening, outlining that they had been punished with a points deduction for playing ineligible players.
The club countered that by saying that there had been no help or support provided by the SFA during the implementation of the COMET system.
READ MORE: Sauchie Juniors hit with points deduction
COMET was introduced by the SFA in summer, with clubs expected to register every player, coach and official with the new system.
Clubs had reported difficulty using the new system, while delays had occurred in players being approved for play.
Duncan went on: “We were notified at the end of August by the league that they suspected we had been playing ineligible players.
“It would be taken to a committee meeting, discussed there and then we’d be told of the sanctions that would happen.
“COMET was put into place in June by the SFA but there was no training put out apart from two webinars in July and August.
“On July 7, we registered some players, they were submitted on the system and it said pending because the SFA didn’t have enough staff to go through the amount of player registrations and they had to sign everyone off.
“We approached the first league game of the season and we made several calls to the SFA and the League and we were very concerned we hadn’t done it correctly.”
By the first league game of the season, Sauchie had 17 players who were considered ineligible due to still being pending on the system.
Duncan explained that other clubs in the country had been made aware of a guidance note which stated pending players could be used providing there were screenshots taken.
He continued: “A guidance note came from the SFA that said any players who were pending were eligible to play as long as we had screenshots.
READ MORE: Sauchie suffer Scottish Cup exit to Buckie
“That was given to the Glasgow and west clubs but not to the East of Scotland League.
“We had 17 players who were ineligible for the first game of the season so it was either we didn’t play that game or we played it with the players that we had who were pending on the system, which would have been fine because we had screenshots.”
Sauchie went ahead and played these players in the opening league games of the season and also in the East of Scotland Qualifying Cup tie against Glenrothes.
As part of their sanctions, they have been removed from the Qualifying Cup, with Glenrothes progressing instead.
At the end of August, this had come to the SFA’s attention and despite Duncan’s best efforts to contact them, he had no official word from the governing body that they were doing anything wrong.
He said: “We made 14 calls, 17 emails and we didn’t get one bit of correspondence from the SFA, not one reply back.
“It took the league from July 27 to the end of August to notify us that we were playing ineligible players.
“If that had been identified on the first game of the season, we would have lost the three points on the first game of the season and then we could’ve tried to fix the problem.
“After the fourth league game of the season, numerous phone calls and emails to the SFA but the pattern goes on, nothing came back at all.
“None of the board contacted us whatsoever through the whole of August, it’s like they’ve sat and watched us make this mistake.”
The point deduction now sends Sauchie to the bottom of the East of Scotland Premier Division on four points, three away from safety.
Directly above them lies St Andrews, who have six points but have played two games less than the Reds.
Duncan added: “We’re sitting bottom of the table, we’re way adrift, we’ve now got to get a plan together on how we’re going to get out of this.
“We’ve been dealt a hand, we need to make sure we can turn this season round now and that’s the most important thing.”
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