TIME TO FACE THE HARSH REALITY
If fans want a football club to come back to, then they have to come good, insists Mackie
THEY were supposed to be a model club. Some insist they still are. Which begs a couple of obvious questions.
If Hearts are so desperate that they’re asking everyone — from their high-earning director of football down — to take a 50-per-cent pay cut, how bad are things for teams without the steady revenue stream of a fans’ foundation?
And can Ann Budge really expect those Hearts punters, a group with every reason to feel disconnected from the well-rewarded footballers who have delivered only misery upon misery in this season of woe, to bail the Jambos out? Again?
Alex Mackie, a founding member of the Foundation of Hearts and its first chairman, the man who persuaded Budge to front the joint rescue package that dragged Hearts from the wreckage of the ruinous Vladimir Romanov era, isn’t one to confuse football with matters of life and death.
Like everyone you speak to these days, he’s at pains to stress that families will have enough to worry about without giving events at Tynecastle, Anfield or Stark’s Park a second thought.
Having seen his club pushed to the brink of extinction by Romanov’s criminally reckless boom-and-bust policies, however, he can’t bear to see all of that hard work — the genuine community
effort to save the club — go to waste now.
‘We faced an existential threat during the aftermath of the Romanov era,’ Mackie told
Sportsmail.
‘But this is not just a threat to football — it’s a threat to the whole business sector.
‘Hearts have had to do what they’ve had to do. They had no choice.
‘I won’t offer any criticism because I’m acutely aware of the effort everyone is putting in there.
‘It was me who found Ann and roped her into the club. She’s a very smart person who has a passion for the club.
‘We’re still on good speaking terms and I know that the other board members in there are sensible people.
‘If fans want a football club to come back to, they have to come good. But I know that many fans will have other concerns.
‘It’s easy for me to say this because I’m doing okay and can afford to chip in.
‘A lot of people will be out of work or will be really stretched by everything that has happened.
‘Hopefully, the people who can afford to will step up. The Foundation of Hearts is there, the perfect vehicle for fans to provide help.
‘Look at what we’ve achieved already, building a new stand and coming out of administration.
‘We’re facing an unprecedented set of circumstances for all football clubs.
‘To help people get through this, maybe it will be even more important to have some hope that their club will still be there.’
It’s a thought that has occurred to many, even as we cope with the impact of schools closing, food shortages and — lest we forget — the actual threat of the coronavirus itself.
His thoughts firing ten to the dozen, despite trying to juggle with his own firm’s ability to ride out this storm, the accountant can’t get away from the numbers underpinning Budge’s decision.
So, yes, he still harbours long-term hopes of Hearts and the Foundation expanding to provide an even firmer bedrock in the years and decades to come.
Like many with an interest in football, he has looked with envy at the Barcelona ‘socios’ model offering different tiers of membership; the money that sort of a system provides, before a single ticket has been sold, is something that every club craves.
And he has studied the Bundesliga system, where the flip side of clubs facing very strict financial regulations is the promise that, in the event of a genuine crisis, there’s a central fund — something they’ve all contributed to over the years — to help any side teetering on the brink.
‘Once we come back out of this, there will be a need to redouble our efforts in learning from various leagues who have coped best,’ said Mackie.
‘We will have an opportunity to take the best of what is being done elsewhere. Once we get through this.’
That’s a topic for another day. Right now, Hearts — very nearly wound up over a £450,000 tax bill in the darkest days of 2013 and 2014 — are just battling to balance the books.
There’s plenty about Budge’s plan not to like. There are staff at Hearts, not on the playing side but doing the actual work that keeps the club running, who will be plunged into poverty by her proposals.
It is to be hoped that some of the bigger earners on the first team might agree to take a little less than half of their monthly salary — and allow those who need it most to at least keep paying the mortgage.
On the overall decision to impose cuts to expenditure, though, Mackie is absolutely clear.
He declared: ‘This is not financial mismanagement. It’s good financial management.
‘The flow of finance for all football clubs is cyclical. And your planning is built on anticipating cash flow.
‘As an accountant, I’m involved in budget planning and understand that businesses need
Hearts had no choice... I hope that the people who can afford to will step up
to be able to anticipate earnings with some degree of certainty.
‘At the moment, the Foundation money may be the only certainty that Hearts have.
‘Television money will be drying up, no doubt. There are no gate receipts or income from games.
‘We’re just hitting that period when season ticket advance sales would be coming up.
‘They would have been planning for a substantial income from the Scottish Cup semi-final against Hibs. So your whole budget has been kicked up in the air.
‘I think this was inevitable. I run a business and understand that, in this emergency, everyone has to look to their cash flow. Cash flow is king.
‘So Ann has had no choice but to take the step she has taken.’
Avoiding further cuts and more drastic measure will, according to Mackie, be down to supporters.
‘A lot of people have been saying recently that football is the most important of the unimportant things in life,’ he said. ‘We all understand that.
‘But, for all football clubs, all business, this is a serious matter.
‘It is about how we come out at the end of this. We have to have a football club, in some form, at the end of this. So it’s very important for Hearts fans to see us through.
‘The Foundation of Hearts represents all Hearts fans, whether they are members or not.
‘And I think there may be 80,000 Hearts fans worldwide, according to some estimates. There are certainly 40,000 on various different databases.
‘Where these fans can afford to do so, and I know it’s not going to be possible for a lot of people, they should get on the Foundation website and help out.
‘I never liked the expressions “make the pledge”.
‘I always saw the Foundation as more of a membership organisation.
‘And we need people either to become members or even just make a one-off donation.
‘We’re seeing all over Scotland how football clubs represent their communities and give back to their communities.
‘Hearts have been very good on that front in recent years.
‘So maybe it’s time, only in the case of those who can genuinely afford it, for the community to give some more back.’