Comment: Lessons to be learned by SPFL and Hearts as Scottish football enters a new season

Hearts will attempt to move on after the arbitration verdict.

“When you make a mistake, there are only three things you should ever do about it: Admit it, learn from it, and don't repeat it.” The words of the fabled American football coach Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant are as wise as they are versatile.

Their sporting origins make them apt for analysing the future for the Scottish Professional Football League and Hearts after months battling against one another. Mistakes on both sides should be acknowledged, and lessons need learned to avoid repeats.

Monday’s arbitration verdict confirming relegations for Hearts, Partick Thistle and Stranraer brought an end to a bitter legal battle which began in the Court of Session. The SPFL crowed about feeling vindicated but, in truth, had hardly covered themselves in glory.

Hearts suffered an enforced and somewhat harsh demotion – as did Thistle and Stranraer. Given the Edinburgh club’s resources, they should never have allowed themselves to sit bottom of the Premiership with eight games left.

Just as Scotland’s football clubs will be reluctant to take any future dispute to court following the SPFL’s resounding win, so should the league’s board cringe at their decision in April to publish the result of an incomplete vote to end the 2019/20 season early.

Holding an arbitration hearing in private also leads to suspicion and mistrust among the public. Allowing access to the process would have helped regain at least a modicum of respect after months of infighting. For that to happen, the Scottish FA’s arbitration rules would need altered.

Fans have spent years calling for Scottish football’s governing bodies to become more transparent. The coronavirus shutdown fallout merely underlined what is a very worthwhile point.

Hearts supporters can now turn their attention to how their club responds and rebuilds following relegation in a season cut short through no fault of their own.

They won’t forget the feeling of being let down by a league organisation which rushed to end the campaign early amid a global pandemic, although there were mistakes at Tynecastle long beforehand.

For the Hearts board, there is perhaps already a lesson learned about handling an on-field slump before it gets out of control. They failed to act quickly enough when the team’s form plummeted under former manager Craig Levein early in 2019, and the consequences have been catastrophic.

Daniel Stendel could not reverse the trend but, with Robbie Neilson now back in charge, Hearts are expected to win the 2020/21 Championship title without too much difficulty.

The club’s total wage bill exceeded £8million last season and, whilst it will be trimmed, will still dwarf those of their second-tier competitors.

Fans have contributed £10million in the last seven years through Foundation of Hearts, with benefactors including James and Morag Anderson donating almost £9m since 2016.

The Hearts squad currently includes nine full internationalists, so getting out of Scotland’s second division should be well within their capabilities given all of the above. Particularly if coronavirus suppresses enough to allow backing from one of the country’s largest support bases.

Those in charge at Tynecastle Park must mitigate financial losses from dropping out of the top flight. Owner Ann Budge estimated those will be between £2.5m and £3m. It remains to be seen if the Andersons and other philanthropists will be enlisted again.

New signings need to be vetted better than they have been in recent years – an issue central to Hearts’ future prospects. The appointments of Neilson as manager with Jim Jefferies as a football consultant were doubtless made with this partly in mind.

If nothing else, the tendency to issue lucrative three-year and four-year contracts to players unproven in Scotland should now be consigned to the past.

Other challenges await on the field. When the Championship campaign finally starts on October 17, Hearts will instantly be viewed as a major scalp by every player at every club in the division.

Last time they featured at that level, the 2014/15 campaign, Hibs and Rangers shouldered some of that burden. Now it is Hearts’ to bear alone and that brings pressure everywhere from Inverness to Dumfries.

Neilson knows the course intimately having won the league with the Edinburgh club in 2015 and again with Dundee United last season.

His return may be a lesson learned in itself given Hearts’ struggles since he left for MK Dons in November 2016. He is sure to be well appreciated this time round in what will be something of a fresh start.

There remains a strong sense of injustice in Gorgie and the manner of relegation without playing the league to a finish will stick in fans’ throats for years to come.

Clubs recently voted against a proposal to give the SPFL board power to decide how this season ends if coronavirus forces another early shutdown.

That creates the harrowing prospect of history repeating itself with another vote. For all concerned, it is a spine-chilling thought. The discord remains live and burning, but lessons must be heeded in order to progress.

Hearts gradually seem to repairing some of their mistakes of recent years with more work to be done in the weeks and months ahead.

After a resounding victory in arbitration, it remains to be seen if the SPFL can even acknowledge that the whole debacle could and should have been handled better.

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