St Mirren chief executive Tony Fitzpatrick has written to Motherwell to complain about coach Maurice Ross' "derisory" comments after the clubs' weekend fixture was postponed.

The Scottish Premiership game was called off hours before kick-off amid a Covid-19 outbreak at the Paisley side.

While not accusing St Mirren of foul play, Ross claimed rules allow clubs to be "opportunistic" to get matches off.

"The comments are both unfortunate and unhelpful," said Fitzpatrick

."In particular, I deprecate any suggestion that we or any other football club would take advantage of this pandemic for personal gain. Any notion that we have been 'opportunistic' in seeking to discharge our public health responsibilities is a fallacy.

"I cannot fathom why Mr Ross would seek to publicly call into question the integrity of a fellow SPFL member club for adhering to the agreed protocols, which are in place to protect players, officials and clubs."

Ross was speaking on Sunday Sportsound the day after the Fir Park club had their second game in a row postponed because of a coronavirus outbreak at an opposing team.

First Kilmarnock, then St Mirren had players forced into isolation and had to inform the SPFL they could not fulfil their fixture, with the games to be rescheduled.

European governing body Uefa's guidance, which has been adopted by the SPFL for league purposes, states that a fixture should be played as long as a team can field 13 registered players, one of which has to be a goalkeeper.

"Hypothetically, we've got two injuries and we play Celtic in a couple of weeks' time," said the Motherwell coach. "We could say the kitman's wife has Covid and we all need to self-isolate until we get all our good players back.

"I'm not saying it is [happening] - but the rules allow for it."

A Motherwell spokesman said: "We have received the letter from St Mirren. We will digest the contents of it and we will respond to Tony Fitzpatrick privately."