In January, the working group chaired by Lord MacAulay will recommend a long-term solution to a board unanimously behind the Cala deal. Their decision has assumed a monumental significance for the club as it will provide the framework for how long Hearts pay an estimated £500,000 per season to play at Murrayfield.
According to an expert in footballing finance, as long as there is no concrete future for the club, the financial equilibrium achieved by the sale of Tynecastle will remain precarious and supporters already unhappy at the relocation of their club will become further disenchanted. Stephen Morrow, senior lecturer in sports studies at the University of Stirling, believes the supporters’ role has been underestimated by Robinson, the chief executive of Hearts.
“The priority has to be to find a long-term solution as soon as possible and to win back the support of the fans of the club. They have to rebuild the social ties between the club and the supporters. The next part of the business plan relies on the same people that are opposed to the sale of Tynecastle going to watch the team play at Murrayfield.”
Tynecastle was valued at around £16m recently, so the bottom end £20.5m, which could rise to £22m, does look like good business. However, with accumulative debts of £19.1m, that could leave Hearts with as little as £1.4m and no major assets. Murrayfield will cost £20,000 per game. Hearts can back out of that deal after a year, but once that period has elapsed, three years notice must be given. With a long-term solution some way off, Murrayfield could be Hearts’ home for the next four seasons at least, at an accumulative cost of £2m. Having played their trump card to get out of debt, Hearts will need to go back to the bank. “The bank may take a more flexible approach, but will they see the club as the kind of business they want to invest in? The people running the business are the same people who were overseeing this terrible financial mess. The banks, as well as the club, are being offered a clean slate, and they are much less likely to make the same mistakes again,” said Morrow.
Robinson, however, does not accept responsibility for the position Hearts were in upon his arrival. “We are where we are because of the financial environment and the financial culture of football. We stopped the quest for success that attracted SMG (The Scottish Media Group, who invested £3.5m in shares and provided the club with an additional £4.5m loan in 1999), but that market turned turtle. We are now reacting to those circumstances.”
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The next step is the most important that Hearts will take. The working group are looking at six long-term solutions. Robert McGrail, an Edinburgh businessman who has teamed up with former chairman Leslie Deans, is proposing to buy Tynecastle and lease it back to the club. The working party was due to discuss this proposal last week, but the Cala negotiations took precedence. It has since emerged that a document stating the board’s opposition to the lease back scheme was to have been put to the working party, apparently at Robinson’s request, although Foulkes insists that the door remains open if McGrail and Deans can match the Cala bid.
Robert McGrail’s brother, Peter, has put forward the most intriguing of the alternatives. He proposes a three-way move that would see Hearts and the local high school moved around the current site like pieces in a puzzle. Tynecastle would be relocated across MacLeod Street, with the council rebuilding the school where the stadium now stands.
Of the new sites being considered, Sighthill, to the west of Gorgie, would involve a collaboration with sportscotland and the local council. Both are committed to developing a multi-sport site as part of the bid for the Commonwealth Games in 2014. However, the capacity requirement of the existing proposals is significantly short of the attendance levels Hearts would hope to attract. Foulkes has said that Hearts are willing to venture into partnership using some of the funds raised from the sale, and he could broker an increase in capacity in return.
“The joint ownership model works well in other countries, whether it is local government involvement in France or multi-sport usage as in Germany or Denmark,” Morrow said. “There is no reason for a club to be the sole owner of a stadium, it makes sense to spread the risk and cost of ownership.”
Alternatives include land belonging to the owner of Hibernian, Tom Farmer, at Straiton, which would be leased to the club. Danderhall, to the south of the capital, is the subject of redevelopment plans from Midlothian Council but may be too far from the urban fan base, while a site at Saughton that is being considered for the Commonwealth bid offers a solution closer to home.