HEARTS will hold further talks with Supporters Direct next week regarding the possibility of a fan-led takeover of the club.
Paul Goodwin, head of SD Scotland, described yesterday's meeting with Hearts directors Sergejus Fedotovas and David Southern as "another good step forward" and will return to Tynecastle on Wednesday with more detailed proposals on how supporters could assume ownership from Vladimir Romanov and Ukio Bankus Investment Group.
Goodwin believes there is a willingness on the part of Romanov and UBIG to move on after seven years at Tynecastle but acknowledged that "the devil is in the detail" when it comes to finalising a deal. Hearts have already thrown out an opening bid from the Foundation of Hearts consortium led by businessman Alex Mackie. Goodwin, though, has not been deterred by that setback and believes substantial progress is being made.
"The meeting [yesterday] was very productive and there was a genuine appetite to discuss the way forward with the fans' involvement," he said. "We plan on meeting again next week at which point we hope to introduce further proposals for discussion. I'm feeling very positive about the whole thing."
A Hearts spokesperson added: "We welcomed the opportunity to talk to Supporters Direct and we expect further meetings in the future as we move towards a club owned and run by its supporter base. The current share scheme and the fans' fund-raising efforts remain our priority while we establish a more stable financial position."
Mackie, the accountant leading the Foundation of Hearts consortium that includes property developer Brian Cormack, financial advisor Jim Bryant, and former Hearts player Donald Ford, revealed the group intend on following the Barcelona membership model for funding if their bid for the club is successful.
"There are 300,000 socios at Barcelona all paying a small membership fee," he said. "If we could harness 25,000 Hearts fans, and we think we can, paying £10 a month then that's £250,000 a month coming in. The fans should know that would be used legitimately.
"The Foundation clearly has business minds but it's going to be a representative organisation. We would be nurturing the club, making sensible moves, transferring players when suitable, having no debt and using a balanced budget.
"The Foundation would act as a watchful and nurturing parent of the club, almost like a notional bank for the club. The Foundation will hold the club to account for a balance budget but will also supply the club with money as and when required. We'll be taking money in through the fans membership base and we have other plans to raise money which are innovative and quite far reaching. There would be absolute clarity about everything."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article