The start of this season has been a difficult one for Hearts supporters.
They have lost seven matches on the bounce. They failed to secure Europa League group stage football, losing to Viktoria Plzen with a whimper. Lawrence Shankland can’t buy a goal. Steven Naismith’s hoody is on a shoogly peg. Hibs even managed to win a game at the weekend, for pity’s sake.
But like a plane carrying a ‘Neilson out’ banner emerging from the clear blue sky, good news has emerged as if from nowhere to lift spirits down Gorgie way. And it’s no wonder that Hearts supporters are starting to once again get a little bit excited.
The development that Brighton chairman Tony Bloom is looking to sink £10m into the club with the fans retaining ownership (he may accrue a minority stake down the line, all going well), would surely be a welcome one even if that was all that was on the table.
Just about everyone knows the Brighton story by now, after all. Bloom has taken them from relative obscurity to mixing it with the elite in the English Premier League, and very often, beating them. They are now an established EPL outfit, and their ability to identify talent to not only augment their team, but to turn frankly ridiculous profits, is now the stuff of legend.
In short, he has a track record in the game, and one that inspires confidence. But it is how he has pulled off the trick that should really be generating excitement among the Jambos.
Bloom’s ‘Starlizard’ analytical software has been the bedrock of the Brighton surge to the upper reaches of the English game, allowing the club to identify the best talent from around the world that fits whatever specific need they may have at any moment in time, and perhaps critically from a Hearts point of view, at the price point they desire.
It’s not all spreadsheets and Moneyball though. Brighton CEO Paul Barber has spoken in the past about the recruitment process at the club, with more traditional concepts like scouts watching the players identified and background checks on their character and personality all work that is carried out before they commit to signing anyone.
So far, all well and good, but it would be understandable if some Hearts fans are wondering just how a concept that is designed to operate in the richest league in the world, and with Brighton spending money that even the biggest clubs in Scotland can only dream about, can be scaled down to suit the more modest means at their own club’s disposal.
For evidence of success then, perhaps they shouldn’t be looking at Brighton at all, but at a more relatable contemporary, such as Belgian outfit Union Saint-Gilloise.
Bloom owns a minority stake in USG, who are now mixing it with the big boys of Belgian football for the league title year on year. You may remember them giving Rangers an almighty fright in the Champions League qualifiers a couple of years back, and they will face them again in the group stage of the Europa League in late January.
Particularly at the beginning of Bloom’s journey with USG, the club were shopping in similar markets to the ones Hearts operate in, paying fees that certainly wouldn’t be out of the Tynecastle club’s reach.
Now, after racking up tens of millions of pounds of profit in transfer fees using the Starlizard software, they are able to incrementally push their boat that little bit farther out, speculating to accumulate, but doing so sustainably with money they have brought in from selling players on.
It all sounds a little too good to be true, admittedly. As someone who grew up supporting Motherwell, I am very much in favour of fan ownership, and view wealthy investors with something of a wearied and hugely critical eye.
In this case though, it seems as though many of the objections I may have had if I was a Hearts supporter have been answered already. There is no plan to oust the fans as majority shareholders. Hearts won’t be a feeder club for Brighton. There is a proven track record at the highest level in the game, but also at a club of comparable stature. In fact, Hearts are arguably a bigger club than USG.
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Perhaps, in hindsight, this is where Motherwell got it wrong with their infamous video begging Taylor Swift to ‘Gie’s some dough’. ‘Gie’s yer software, Tony’ might have been the smarter pitch.
Talks are progressing between the parties and it looks as though a deal might be concluded by the end of this week. If I was a Hearts fan, I’d be a little giddy.
Admittedly, even the prospect of Hearts being in third right now seems a little ambitious given they are rooted to the bottom of the Premiership table, but being ‘best of the rest’ and maybe winning the odd cup is currently the very limit of the club’s ambition.
It might well be the best that Bloom and Starlizard can ultimately achieve too. Who knows? Infamously, no club other than Celtic or Rangers has won the Scottish title since 1985, and I harboured little hope of that sequence being broken in my lifetime. The ceiling to success for smaller clubs here isn’t so much made of glass as it is Kevlar.
But there is at least the prospect that by trying something a little different, and something that has proven to elevate teams up several levels elsewhere, Hearts may yet be able to bridge the gap.
They’d be crazy, in my view, to pass up the opportunity. If they do though, Tony, I’ve got a Lanarkshire area code number here that you might be interested in...
