Ray McKinnon nears taking over at Dundee United

Ray McKinnon has taken another step towards taking over at Dundee United after resigning from the manager's post at Raith Rovers.

The 45-year-old former Tannadice midfielder has been locked in talks with United chairman Stephen Thompson since Monday.

While a spokesman for the Tangerines - who have already agreed compensation terms with Rovers - would only confirm the negotiations with McKinnon had been positive but were ongoing'', Press Association Sport understands he will be confirmed as Mixu Paatelainen's replacement on Thursday.

United made their move after being impressed by McKinnon's performance in Kirkcaldy, leading the Fifers to an impressive fourth-place Championship finish before seeing their promotion hopes ended at the weekend following a 2-1 aggregate defeat to Hibs in the play-off quarter-final.

In a statement posted on the club's official website, Raith confirmed McKinnon had stepped down from his Stark's Park role.

It read: Ray McKinnon has this evening advised the club of his intention to resign from his position as manager, with immediate effect.''

Rovers chief executive Eric Drysdale - who has already launched his own search for a new boss - added: Everyone at the club is naturally very disappointed that Ray has reached this decision, and we certainly did everything in our power, and then more, to try to retain his services but he leaves Raith Rovers with thanks and best wishes for the future.

Ray has built a terrific squad of players with tremendous team spirit, and that will be his legacy.''

Meanwhile, United suffered another embarrassment in their disastrous season after being docked three points for including ineligible players.

The punishment for naming two recently-returned loan players in their squad against Inverness on Friday was effectively meaningless given they had already been relegated from the Premiership, although they also received a fine.

And there was more than a touch of grandstanding about Thompson's decision to resign from the Scottish Professional Football League board in protest.

Thompson would have needed to step down at the league's annual general meeting in the summer anyway given he was one of three Premiership representatives.

United did not realise Ali Coote and Jamie Robson were not permitted to play on Friday, after coming back from loan spells, at East Fife and Brechin respectively, earlier in the week. They would have needed to have returned before April 1 to be eligible to play.

Coote came on for the final 14 minutes of United's 3-2 victory while Robson was an unused substitute. United accepted their guilt but hit out at the punishment, which included a £30,000 fine, an unspecified amount of which is suspended.

A club statement read: Chairman Stephen Thompson has resigned from his position on the SPFL board with immediate effect.

He has expressed his shock and anger at the severity of the sanction imposed by the SPFL in relation to a rule breach in our recent Premiership fixture versus Inverness Caley Thistle.

Whilst acknowledging the club's error and accepting a breach of rules occurred, the chairman feels the gravity of the punishment is wholly disproportionate for what was a simple honest, human error.

We await the full written judgment after which we will consider our next action.

Our travelling fans are the ones who have been punished the most here and the club will examine ways to make this up to them.''

The SPFL disciplinary panel concluded that replaying the game before the end of the season was not practical''.