Ann has a duty and we’re urging her to take every step possible.
supporters in Europe and our fans put more money into their clubs than anyone else.
“We’re the biggest customers and yet fans are completely ignored by an SPFL leadership that allows self-interest to flourish when it should be taking greater control of the sport’s well-being. supporter engagement. They are especially scathing of a system that has allowed their own club to head up reconstruction talks, which they reckon will always be doomed to failure because they stand accused of naked self-interest.
Kilgour added: “Ann Budge was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. If she hadn’t accepted the league’s offer to take charge of reconstruction then critics would have said we had our chance. “Ann quite rightly talks about
Hearts becoming ‘fan owned, but not fan run.’ On that same basis we believe the SPFL should be ‘club owned, but not club run’.” Budge has been forced to fend off criticism from lower league clubs who reckon she wants them out of senior football and Ayr United chairman Lachlan Cameron labelled her “smug and condescending” earlier this week. Recent comments, along with the voting pattern of those who wanted to call the season early, have not been lost on the wider Hearts support. Kilgour said: “I’ve had numerous emails, calls and messages from fellow fans who want to boycott clubs such as Ayr United and Dundee, as well as clubs in the
Premiership who voted against us.
“It’s not the route we’d like to go down, but I understand the feeling. These are people who follow the club home and away, arrange their holidays around winter training camps and take days off work to go to Dingwall in midweek.”
The last resort for Hearts is the legal route and Kilgour insists the club will have no option if reconstruction isn’t agreed.
He said: “Ann has a duty, as a director and on behalf of the club, to go down that route and we’re urging her to take every step possible.
“The case for compensation is very winnable, not just for Hearts but also Partick Thistle, Stranraer and all those clubs who were denied the chance of promotion.
“The very fact we may have to take that course of action is a damning indictment of how the SPFL has been run. The Scottish game is a laughing stock.”
STEVIE KILGOUR ON THE THREAT OF LEGAL ACTION