Scott Brown: Time to stop arguing and focus on keeping clubs alive

Like all at his club Peterhead, the 25-year-old club captain is fiercely opposed to a 14-14-14 model which would see the Balmoor side demoted to the bottom tier.

And while he has sympathy for clubs who feel harshly treated by the impact of calling a halt to the season, he feels it’s now time to move on.

He told The Herald: “It would be a pretty sad thing to put us effectively in a lower league, just to keep the likes of Hearts and Partick Thistle up.

“They might argue that it’s not fair on them but it’s surely fairer to relegate a team which was bottom of the league than teams who were seventh, eight and ninth.

“There seems to be a lot of looking after yourself going on, which again is understandable but this is a one-off time and, while it may be easy for me too say, clubs should maybe just bite the bullet and stop arguing.

“Let’s get together and make sure that there still are four leagues in Scottish football next season and that no club’s going to go under.”

Like everyone else in the game, Brown is facing an uncertain future. He is out of contract shortly and has no idea when he is likely to be offered another one.

And as a committee member of the players’ union PFA Scotland, he is well aware of the wider impact the current uncertainty is having on players up and down the country.

He said: “In England and in other countries they’ve had the beauty of being able to spend money on testing players, but I don’t know how possible that’s going to be in Scotland.

“If social distancing is still in place outside of football how can we be expected to be going onto a pitch and tackling and wrestling people when we’re not allowed to be within two metres of somebody else?

“Some people are going to have kids or older relatives and wouldn’t be prepared to put themselves at risk until things feel safe, so it’s hard to see a future.

“Things will get better over time, which they have done, but gradually and how better it gets to get football back on is going to be difficult.

“I’m in the fortunate situation where I have another job and would have enough money to get by but for some football is their only income.

“The furlough scheme has probably helped 95 per cent of the clubs stay afloat or make sure that the players continue to get paid.

“We are now coming up to a stage where contracts are going to expire and there’s going to be a kind of mass exodus. We’ve seen that at clubs like Dunfermline and Queen of the South already.

“It’s going to be a difficult time for players, we know that at the PFA.

“There’s nothing we can expect. If clubs are extending their furlough as long as possible that’s appreciated by the players.

“But we need to be realistic. Clubs aren’t going to able to afford to pay people while they’ve got no product on the pitch. I don’t expect to be getting a new contract at Peterhead if there’s not going to be any football getting played.”