Negotiations over a deal are close to a conclusion

Negotiations between the British entrepreneur Tony Bloom and senior Hearts officials over a proposed investment deal are now nearing an end point. The Edinburgh club have been in discussions with Bloom and his advisors for some time about an agreement to introduce high-end recruitment analytics at Tynecastle Park. Those are approaching a conclusion, which could transform how new players and coaches are identified by the club.

Hearts are already working with Jamestown Analytics, using technology and algorithms developed by Bloom’s Starlizard gambling company, to help them identify a new manager after sacking Steven Naismith last month. A future investment worth up to £10m would see Bloom obtain a minority shareholding in the club, but for now the focus in Gorgie is on accessing recruitment data produced by Bloom’s companies.

Hearts remain bottom of the Premiership after eight matches and want the arrival of a new head coach to reverse their fortunes. Beyond that, the hope within the corridors of Tynecastle is that working with Bloom’s companies can in future help them close the gap to Celtic and Rangers, who have significantly greater financial muscle. The Hearts chief executive Andrew McKinlay explained the long-term plan regarding Bloom’s proposal.

“We are allowed to use analytics,” he said. “We are hoping to do something that can help us with the analytics from the first instance. There is chat about investment and that is more around FoH and others who hold shares. It's exciting, it should be exciting and looking forward to having a bit more to say on it.

“The investment would be nice. I know there are numbers being talked about, but those numbers might be a bit wide of the mark. It might sound silly: The investment to me is going to be great, it's going to help, but it's not the exciting bit of this. The exciting bit for me is access to the analytics. If you look at how analytics has been used at other clubs, and how successful it's been at other clubs, you can't help but be excited.

“From my perspective, when I first came into the club, we'd just been demoted. I remember saying I wanted to get us back to being the third force in Scotland. Even that I got abuse because I wasn't showing enough aspiration. I learned quickly. I've never said in an interview that we should be first or second. That's always been on my mind. I've always struggled to think how you do that from a financial perspective.

“Unless something goes wrong with one of the other two, that's a different thing. You're constantly looking for something else that can allow you to close that gap because their finances are miles ahead. When analytics comes along as an opportunity, I genuinely see it as a chance to use it properly. We should get a standard of player that allows us to close that gap.

“Genuinely, hopefully at some point we challenge, whether it's them in the second place or maybe in time it would be lovely to be right up there. It would be brilliant for Scottish football. Whether it's Hearts or someone else, we're all dying to have more than two teams every year who can win the league. I see this as a genuine opportunity to do that.”

Any cash injection would not necessarily be passed on for spending on first-team players. Other areas of the club would be likely to benefit from it, with a new training ground one of the projects Hearts have discussed. “I guess it could [help with that]. I don't see the investment bit as the big bit,” reiterated McKinlay. “The analytics doesn't just do recruitment. It can be very helpful with opposition analysis. We do a lot of that ourselves already. This adds another layer to these sorts of things. We're always looking at that investment piece ahead as to what that looks like.”

Foundation of Hearts own the Edinburgh club with a 75.1 per cent stake on behalf of supporters. Any proposal to dilute the FoH shareholding would need approval from more than 8,000 of their members. It would require 90 per cent of them to vote in favour. Bloom, the Brighton and Hove Albion chairman, could purchase shares from smaller stakeholders without needing Foundation permission.

“One of the crucial things there is the Foundation and where the Foundation sits on that,” added McKinlay. “They've been quite clear about their red lines for things that they wouldn't want. What we won't do is enter into anything which is a link-up with another club or akin to a feeder. Which is why, when individuals are talked about, it's not helpful because people then naturally think if an individual were linked to other clubs. The one thing I can say categorically is there are no links here to any other football club.

“It will bring things but we do need to look at investment for things like the training ground. Having said that we've actually invested quite heavily in the background [at Riccarton] over the last year or so. We've got a bistro up there, we've just stitched a pitch, a semi-hybrid pitch up there. That will be exclusively our pitch. We are getting better with what we get from the facilities up there as they currently stand. We've got it in quite a good place. Steven was very demanding on that side of things, which is great given his background and where he's been. He felt we've got it to about as good as we can get it in the current set-up.”

McKinlay also discussed how external individuals can buy shares in Hearts aside from putting a proposal to the Foundation. “There are various ways you can do it. There are other shares out there that could be bought. You can dilute so you can do a share issue,” he explained.

“In fact, that might end up being a prep [share preposition] because if you buy someone else's shares technically the money is theirs, not the club's. It depends on the individual deal. If you're doing a dilute you're issuing shares in the club. There would have to be certain approval mechanisms around that, which no doubt FoH would have to be involved in.”