Dundee Captain Gary Harkins has left the club to join Kilmarnock FC for an undisclosed fee. The former Partick Thistle midfielder joined the Dark Blues in 2009 for approximately £150,000 and helped keep the club in the First Division last season after the sanctions of 25 points deduction and transfer embargo was placed upon the club. Harry MacLean, Dundee Chief Executive spoke to the Dundee website.
"Unfortunately Gary has decided to join Kilmarnock as a result of an agreement entered into when the club went into administration that he could join a SPL club this summer. We had hoped that Gary would stay and had prepared budgets accordingly.
"While disappointed that we haven't, as hoped, managed to persuade him to stay we fully understand his desire to play at as high a level as possible.
Harry went on to explain some of the background behind Harkins' departure "In the simplest of terms, the Administrator wanted to release Gary (and Sparky) in October when we went into Admin. After lengthy disussion with Bryan Jackson we managed to keep Gary (and Sparky) to see if we could sell either or both. In both their cases they had joined an 'ambitious' club with the intention of playing SPL football sooner rather than later.
"We sold Sparky to Wolves but in Gary's case we agreed that if he had not been sold he could move on in the Summer if that's what Gary wanted to do. In some respects this was a gamble to try and avoid relegation by holding on to our better players.
"When Gary indicated he'd like to join Kilmarnock we decided to honour our agreement with Gary provided we could reach some sort of agreement, which we have.
"This is not an ideal situation but we needed to look at it in the historical context.
"As our captain in the 'Deefiant' season Gary played an integral part in the club's survival, we'd like to thank him for his efforts and to wish him good luck and success in his new career at Killie.
"He'll always be welcome at Dens Park."
It is a tremendous blow to lose a player of Gary's quality but we would like to wish him all the best in his future career and thank him for the wonderful memories in his two year stint at Dens Park.
Source: http://www.dundeefc.co.uk/news_detail.asp?h=HARKINS-LEAVES&newsid=1715
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