Raith Rovers: Owner John Sim highlights 'horrific' issues club has suffered with injured players requiring multiple operations

Speaking to Raith TV, Sim stressed that at least the cash-strapped Kirkcaldy outfit – which has suffered an average loss of £150,000 a season since 2005 – had made a profit in the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 campaigns, before suffering a £100,000 loss last term.

And, while Rovers had recently benefited considerably on the financial front by taking significant revenue from drawing Rangers away in this season’s Scottish Cup quarter-finals, Sim said that the fortune of landing this lucrative tie had sadly not been matched when it came to dealing with crocked players requiring surgery.

“We have focused on understanding and controlling the cost side of the equation (of running Rovers),” Sim said.

"What we’ve not been able to do is to be able to influence the number of operations and scans that our players need.

"For instance this season it’s been horrific. And these players seem to need more than one operation to fix one problem.

"If this was in the US I’d just go to the local lawyer on a success/fee basis and say: ‘Sue the hospital’.

"But that’s not the way it works in the UK and I feel for them, people like Ross Matthews who has gone to seemingly countless experts and they’ve not yet managed to fix it. Now they seem to be able to fix it.

"And Jamie Gullan and Ethan Ross have had the same thing. Nobody could really understand what it was and hopefully Ethan’s now fixed and Jamie’s on the mend so things are heading in the right direction.”

Sim also revealed that Stark’s Park required £500,000 of investment to address a “repair bill” at the stadium.

He added: “But it’s not something that we’re planning to deal with in its entirety immediately.

"We are looking at: ‘How can we invest in the stadium in ways that will generate revenue?’”