Administrator Brian Jackson has reacted with disbelief to the punishment meted out to Dundee FC by the Scottish Football League. The First Division club has been docked 25 points and had a transfer embargo imposed after going into administration last month.

Jackson has been given the task of stabilising the club’s finances and preserving the club as it deals with crippling debts. He made representations to the League on behalf of the club last week and said he was dismayed by the severity of the punishment that was announced on Monday.

“It’s [a reaction] of absolute shock,” Jackson told STV. “I understand that the league had to be seen to be doing something given all the circumstances but that kind of punitive decision just seems self-defeating, to my mind.”

The administrator said that the decision was a serious blow to his hopes of saving the club and said that the points deduction, which raises the likelihood of relegation, made his job even more difficult. However, Jackson said that he would continue his efforts to secure new investment and stave off liquidation.

“I wouldn’t want to give up,” he said. “We’ll do everything we can for the survival of the club and I think that the supporters and everyone connected with Dundee deserve that.

“[The SFL are] making a very difficult task practically impossible. It’s really difficult to think about what direction we go in now because we’ve actually kept integrity by fielding a proper team and the supporters have supported that.

“Now, where do you go? Where is the product going to go at this stage? Surely that will affect the other First Division clubs as well.”

No club has successfully appealed against a punishment handed down for entering administration. “That may be the case but we certainly have to consider that we will appeal,” Jackson said. He added that he was also likely to pursue a legal case in order to allow him to do his job without further obstacles being put in his way.

“My first reaction is that we will appeal. I need to also look at possibly a legal appeal.

“In other walks of life the purpose of administration is the survival of the business. You don’t have rules that cut across that and make it even more difficult to achieve your job. I’m considering a legal appeal in terms of rights, duties and legislation of administration."

Jackson acknowledged that none of the options available to the club were “particularly good” but refused to rule out running two appeals in parallel, one following the SPL’s appeals procedure and the other in the courts. He said that he could not understand a decision that he described as “self-defeating for the league and self-defeating for Scottish football.”

"I have to say that the SFL gave me a fair hearing. They gave me plenty of time to put forward any reason why all the sanctions should be minimal and I just was not prepared for this in any way whatsoever."

The administrator also warned that the sanctions could be off-putting for any potential investors, therefore damaging the club’s hopes of coming out of administration quickly.

“Well, it’s certainly not going to encourage them, that’s for sure. I mean, everything about the decision is negative in terms of investment and support. Yes, it could certainly scare off would-be investors.”

Jackson also said that the scale of the penalty was self-defeating. He argued that a penalty of 10-15 points would have given the club something to play for and maintained the integrity of the competition. By imposing such a severe points penalty, the SFL had damaged the product and interest in any games the club played.

The administrator also argued that by devaluing the product, the SFL was damaging other clubs in the league. Some Dundee fans have already mooted the idea of boycotting away matches in the league, which would affect the gate receipts and finances of other member clubs.

“We’ll be trying to get support from fans, which has been absolutely fantastic,” Jackson said. “We’ll be trying to get some local support, which we hope we will still manage to get.

“Certainly external investors will be more or less impossible now so it’s all about us banding together and it’s going to be down to local support. It’s all we can do.”

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