SPFL board member Mike Mulraney has urged clubs to reconsider plans to allow season ticket holders free entry to top-flight play-offs - and rediscover the togetherness that heralded the introduction of the season finale.

The Alloa chairman - whose Scottish Championship club were consigned to a relegation play-off on Saturday - has been dismayed by recent proclamations from Motherwell and Rangers that they do not intend to charge season-ticket holders.

Hibernian went unpunished for the same decision last season but the SPFL believes those circumstances were unique and the Edinburgh club recently saw a bid to halve the levy on play-off income to 25 per cent heavily defeated.

The play-offs were seen as a means to create extra wealth needed to persuade top-flight clubs to open themselves up to another potential relegation place and smooth the way for the merger of two league bodies in June 2013. Hibs were given a £500,000 parachute payment last season and will be due £250,000 more if they do not go straight back up.

Mulraney told Press Association Sport: "The bottom line is we are supposed to be 42 clubs trying to work together and that's what I hope happens.

"A couple of clubs wanted to change the rules a week ago and it was voted down, and here we are with clubs saying they will either ignore the rules or try to subvert them by finding a way round them. It's disappointing.

"The big issue is what is right. Do you stand by the rule and also the spirit of the rule? Are we in it together or are we not?

"I believed we were when we were setting up the SPFL and I still believe it will be the case going forward.

"I don't want any clubs to back down - I want them to re-evaluate their position.

"If clubs believe the current set of rules are unfair then try to change them - don't break them or subvert them."

The SPFL board treated Hibs as a unique case because they had sold the bulk of their season tickets before the play-offs were in place, and Mulraney never thought the decision would be used by others as a precedent.

"It's easy to suggest it was a mistake and I understand why people think that but it was a unique set of circumstances," he said.

"It was still a very, very fine line but one of the issues was that Hibs sold these season tickets in good faith before the SPFL was even created. They couldn't explain the rules to fans because there were no rules, there were no play-offs.

"I am bound by board confidentiality to an extent and there were other reasons, but that weighed heavily on me. We were being asked to punish a club which couldn't have known what the rules were going to be."

Mulraney knows more than most the rewards and risks of the play-offs but is convinced of their value.

"In the long run, people will get used to the play-offs," he said. "Clubs who voted for the rules probably don't think they will ever be in them.

"As someone who is about to experience his seventh play-offs, I can say 100 per cent that they bring tremendous excitement to Scottish football.

"People are talking about the bottom of the Premiership and if we didn't have them then the top of the Championship would have been over long ago. It's a wonderful opportunity for Scottish football to sell itself."

Aberdeen chief executive Duncan Fraser added his voice to calls for unity.

"What it comes down to is that 42 clubs in June 2013 agreed unanimously to the rules," Fraser said.

"Some of the rules I don't particularly rate but you go along with them. You can't cherry-pick which you abide by.

"Last week in a meeting of the 42 clubs changes that were put forward were overwhelmingly rejected.

"It's important as a board that you respect all 42 clubs and do what's in the best interests of the company."