FC Edinburgh chairman Jim Brown says his club's partnership with Hibs can see both benefit from youth player development.
The League One side have agreed a five-year deal with their Premiership city neighbours that will see an annual friendly played, Hibernian women playing at Meadowbank, community work and loan transfers as part of the agreement. Easter Road first-team members Ryan Porteous and Josh Campbell have had loans with the newly-promoted third tier side before and Brown reckons Leith chief executive Ben Kensell is acting in smart fashion.
Jack Brydon has also returned on loan from Hibs and Brown said: "It's a win-win situation and one of the things Hibs realised when we first started talking to Ben Kensell - which a lot of other clubs don't - is the benefit of sending young players to us.
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"The players will actually play, like Ryan Porteous and more recently Josh Campbell. Sometimes when players go out on loan they might be sitting on a bench but when they come to us they're actually playing and getting that experience so it helps both sides.
"On the women's side, we're investing a lot of time and money in our women's team so to have both games on a Sunday at Meadowbank will be great, like a festival of football.
"I think the benefits for both clubs are great and we're on the same page in terms of how we want the partnership to work.
"I get on well with Ben and he realised straight away that it's got to be a two-way street, so the friendly is something massive for us and helps put money in the pot to enable us to do more things.
"It's good timing as well with Jack Brydon returning on loan, and there are another couple in the pipeline as well. With us getting promotion to League One, that was the catalyst for a lot of this because the players are playing at a higher level now.
"We might not have got Jack again if we were still in League Two because he's played in that division, so that's helped as well. It gives him a better platform and League One is going to be some league next season."
It's an exciting time for FC Edinburgh as they prepare to return to their Meadowbank home this Saturday in the Premier Sports Cup against Arbroath after playing at Ainslie Park in recent seasons.
That match against the Championship club is almost sold out with a small amount left to buy, that can be found here.
Brown added: "Saturday is a test event against Arbroath; the building isn't actually open until the Tuesday so the changing room and referees' room will be in use but we can't use anything inside, we're just getting to use the stand.
"We're working with the council - the second stand is being delayed, but we'd like to have spectators standing on the other side, which would hopefully give us a capacity of just under 1,300 for our first league game.
"At the moment there's just the 500-seater stand that the council has built. Tom [Tracy] the owner is putting a lot of investment in so we can at the very, very least consolidate our place in the division."
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