Darvel boss blasts Conference proposal as Rangers and Celtic B plan 'would relegate 200 teams'

Scottish football chiefs have been accused of “relegating 200 clubs in one go” with their plans to create a new Conference division at tier five.

The blueprint would see a 10-team league made up of four Premiership B sides and six clubs from the Highland and Lowland Leagues and is being earmarked for 2024-25. But it has been slammed by Mick Kennedy, the manager of ambitious West of Scotland Premier League side Darvel who stunned Scottish football by knocking Aberdeen out of the Scottish Cup this year.

And he has urged Lowland and Highland clubs to block the proposal by refusing to take part. The Pyramid Working Group met on Tuesday and discussed the Conference idea. It would be funded by the Premiership sides taking part - expected to be Rangers, Celtic, Hearts and Aberdeen - and established as a separate company meaning there would be no need for the 75 per cent approval from SPFL clubs to vote it in.

It could even be fast-tracked for next season if the B teams don’t get an extension to their current ‘guest’ status in the Lowland League. But Darvel and other clubs below League 2 - including the Lowland, Highland and South of Scotland Leagues and the five divisions of the West of Scotland League and four divisions in the East - would all drop a tier as a result of the new division being plonked in at level five.

And Kennedy told Record Sport: “Put Darvel to one side - this is impacting every club in the pyramid below League 2. It would be the only reconstruction of any league in European football that managed to relegate over 200 clubs in one go.

“That’s what is going to happen here - and just to create a platform for four teams. To create a league for them right in the middle of an existing pyramid system is