Exclusive:Hearts reveal their financial plan for transfers, squad size and Tony Bloom's £10m cash

Hearts chief executive Andrew McKinlay today revealed the club’s financial plan for next season in an exclusive interview with the Edinburgh News. He spoke at length on efforts to break even, squad size, targets, transfers and the proposed £9.86m investment from British businessman Tony Bloom. With new head coach Derek McInnes preparing for pre-season, Tynecastle officials are balancing the books while first-team numbers increase.

Hearts currently have 30 players in their squad, including summer signings Christian Borchgrevink, Alexandros Kyziridis, Elton Kabangu and Oisin McEntee. Another two new recruits are imminent in the shape of Claudio Braga and Stuart Findlay, with Islam Chesnokov potentially taking the number to 33. Several players will depart over the coming weeks to reduce McInnes’ playing pool. In future, player trading will be a crucial area for generating revenue.

The new manager has not been set specific targets, according to McKinlay, because he already holds a firm understanding of what constitutes success at Hearts. McInnes stated upon his unveiling that he wanted to challenge for Europe and win silverware in Edinburgh after previously managing St Johnstone, Bristol City, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock. He will gather his new squad next week when they report to Riccarton for pre-season training. McKinlay outlined how discussions with the 53-year-old have gone.

“It's not so much targets. We almost don't need to set Derek targets,” McKinlay explained. “He's very self-aware of it and I guess that's one of the great advantages of bringing someone in that already understands Scottish football, the club and the demands, and has managed one of our main competitors.

“We've just finished in the bottom six, we all know that. The first thing is to re-establish, make sure we're in that top six, make sure we're challenging for Europe, we're doing that every year. I think Derek, when he was at Aberdeen, it was seven years in a row. Last year was the first time we'd done three years in a row in our history. So, we should be doing it pretty much every year, it should be rare that we're not doing it and I think that's the first thing we want to establish.

“Yes, this year was very disappointing in the games against Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen and Hibs. We didn't beat any of them. I'm told that's the first time since the 1990s, so we need to get that going again. I've still never won at Pittodrie. Derek would be quite keen to win at Pittodrie, as would I. So I'm sure the fixture computer will send us up there on day one. Or Kilmarnock. So those are sort of small things.”

Hearts transfers plus Celtic and Rangers Premiership challenge

Working in tandem with Graeme Jones, the Hearts sporting director, McInnes aims to restore the club to a challenging position in Scotland. Bloom’s investment allied to a partnership with Jamestown Analytics gives Hearts added tools to facilitate their aspirations. Bloom’s involvement at Brighton and Hove Albion in England, and at the Belgian champions Union Saint-Gilloise, offers evidence that he can help teams overachieve. There is a quiet confidence around Tynecastle at the moment and McKinlay believes that, in future years, a challenge to Celtic and Rangers could be possible.

“The other team that in my time here we've had zero success against from a winning perspective is Rangers, which I find incredible,” he added. “In fact, this year we should have beaten them so we'd like to do that. It's hard to put a timescale on it. We'll see how things evolve with the player recruitment, etc, but we genuinely want to start looking above and looking at challenging the teams that most people would say: 'You just can't do that - you can't do that from a financial perspective.' And we can't do it from a financial perspective, which is why the era that we're about to embark on to me is very exciting because we've got the opportunity to use the analytics, bring Derek in, Graeme as sporting director.

“This gives us an opportunity, we think, to do something that in many ways looked like it wasn't possible. Time will tell. People will also ask us: 'Why do you think that? How can you think that? That's ridiculous. That's crazy.' One of the main reasons is that you look at what Union have achieved in Belgium [winning the title]. They still do that on a fraction of the budget of Club Brugge and Anderlecht. That's what gives me hope that we can genuinely become one of the big forces in Scotland, even if we have a fraction of the budget of others.”

What are Hearts finances? How much will Tony Bloom invest?

Hearts’ finances are impacted this year by the fact they finished seventh in the Premiership and did not qualify for European competition. Guaranteed league-stage matches in the UEFA Conference League bring in upwards of £5m, which will instead go to Aberdeen as they secured the Europa League play-off spot by winning the Scottish Cup. Bloom’s investment - due to be formally approved at a Hearts EGM next week - will help plug the financial gap.

McKinlay still expects the 2025/26 campaign to be one of the most difficult of his tenure. Hearts posted a £1.2m operating loss, and a £4.4m overall loss, in their accounts for season 2023/24 when they also did not play European group-stage football.

“It's a big gap, there's no doubt about that,” he acknowledged. “We're not looking to decrease the investment in the squad, so the Tony Bloom investment is very important to allow us to do that for at least a season. We don't want to just spend the Tony Bloom investment on plugging gaps, but the timing is quite important whilst we establish a better player trading model than we've had. When we talk about the analytics, bringing in better players, there's two pieces to that. Firstly, we're better on the pitch and we do better. But then if those players do better and we do better, then their value is likely to increase and we're likely to sell.

Brighton EPL progress and USG title win in Belgium

“If you look at the models of Brighton and Union, that's the way it works. Union, without player trading, I don't know the numbers off the top of my head, but there would be significant losses. If you look at Scottish football, at most clubs it's losses without someone putting money in or player trading. Hopefully we'll be back in Europe this time next year but, as we all know, the guaranteed group stage for finishing third or winning the Scottish Cup won't be there. So, it harder again to get that.

“We are envisaging next season being one of our hardest seasons financially. It's not going to be the hardest season financially compared to historical seasons. It's like everything in life. You get used to having a certain level of income. You spend based on your level of income. As a football club, that's very difficult because of Europe having such ups and downs. But that's the reality and that's where we are at the moment.

READ MORE: Stuart Finlay’s Hearts role as transfer makes progress

“So, the investment that we're expecting to come in soon will be very helpful in allowing us almost to transition and change the business into a business that does break even. We're not looking to make profits, we're looking to get all the money back into the club. We're not looking to pay dividends or anything like that. It's to break even, but part of that will be significantly better player trading.”

Which means players being sold when their value peaks. Trimming the squad is something Hearts are actively working on. “Some of it will depend on who goes out because I think fundamentally, and we've talked about this previously, but Derek shares the view that the squad's a bit bloated at the moment. It's a bit too big,” admitted McKinlay. “We've had some out of contract but not that many. There are others that are more on the side.

“That's always the risk in football. It's quite often that you bring in before you go out and that's always quite nervy from a board perspective. We're comfortable with the direction that, by the end of the window closing, we will hopefully have the squad size that we want with the quality of player that we want.”

• Read the second edition of our exclusive three-part interview with Andrew McKinlay on Wednesday at www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/sport/football/hearts