Hibs chief denies club ‘going bust’
LEEANN DEMPSTER last night rubbished rumours that cash-strapped Hibernian could go bust. Owner Ron Gordon released a statement last week warning of ‘substantial and unsustainable strain’ on the club’s finances after players and staff were asked to take wage cuts on top of deferrals. With income plummeting by half, the Leith club have undertaken a review of football operations — including the youth academy. Speaking as former St Johnstone winger Drey Wright underwent
a medical, however, chief executive Dempster claimed Hibs were not heading for administration and insisted: ‘Absolutely not.
‘Clubs, and not just us, have an uncanny ability to survive, let’s be honest.
‘We have been around for over 140 years and we will still be around.
‘I know that has been another rumour, about us going bust, but not at all. These are difficult times and we have had to take difficult steps, difficult decisions but that is the same for everybody.’
Hibs have already asked players and staff to defer wages personally guaranteed by owner Gordon. With further difficult decisions now necessary, Dempster has called on everyone at the club to shoulder some of the burden.
‘We want to do this collectively, as a club, and come through this together. Everybody understands we all have a role to play, whether staff, coaches, players.
‘The only way we will get through the challenges we are facing is if we do that together. Each of us will have to pull in the one direction. That is the message we are delivering, loud and clear, to the whole group.
‘And we want to do it with as little disruption as we can. Everybody needs to contribute.’
Some players have expressed a reluctance to take cuts and, inevitably, eyebrows will be raised in the dressing room by the arrival of a new signing in the shape of 25-year-old Wright.
The wide man turned down a new contract with St Johnstone and, defending the optics of signing players while staff are being asked to take cuts, the CEO responded: ‘We are a football club, so we need to be able to compete and we know that we either have gaps or might have gaps in particular positions, so we are in the market to recruit a few players.
‘There is no suggestion of wholesale changes and we will do that as sensitively as we can but, at the end of the day, it helps everybody for the club to be stronger and, if we didn’t bring in players, we would be entering the new season with one hand tied behind our back, so we need to try to improve the squad.
‘I think we have been fairly consistent and fairly clear on that. I know some people might think these things don’t marry but I think they do. I think we can work with the player group and staff group and still selectively and appropriately bring players in to improve that group as well.
‘We are not talking about 12 out 12 in, we are only talking about positions where we need to recruit.’
The financial situation at Hibs could worsen still if city rivals Hearts win their joint £10million damages action with Partick Thistle against other clubs in the SPFL. ‘What we have just now is clubs in dispute with the league and other clubs and that is damaging, never mind the cash,’ said Dempster. ‘I just don’t know enough about the timing of it or the process just yet so I can’t comment further with any certainty. ‘But, if there was a large award made, it can only come from one place and that would be the central distribution pot and they are already tight, so that would cause some concern.’ Dismissing talk of clubs passing a resolution to expel Hearts and Thistle from the league if the action continues, Hibs were one of the Premiership teams who voted against a reconstruction plan which could have preserved the valuable income offered by regular Edinburgh derbies.
‘That was not a consideration for us,’ added Dempster. ‘Honestly, it wasn’t.
‘This isn’t about who else is in the league. It is to do with the fact that football has been materially affected, as every business has, by Covid. Those issues are not linked specifically to who is in the league.
‘Those issues are related to the fact that the game worldwide has changed immeasurably and we are not able to generate income the way we used to and that is irrespective of who is in the league with us.’
At the last Hibernian AGM, American media mogul Gordon outlined ambitious plans for the club’s future. The bitter and potentially ruinous fallout from Covid-19, you suspect, wasn’t quite what he had in mind.
‘Ron knows we need to make priorities but he is by no means regretful about getting into football or Hibs, albeit at one of the most difficult times you could imagine,’ insisted Dempster.
With Hearts recruiting for a new chief executive, one report yesterday linked Dempster with the role. The links were fuelled, no doubt, by rumours of a frayed working relationship with the current owner.
‘As far as I’m concerned, and I can hopefully speak for him as well, he and I are fine. There is no distance between us and we are moving in the same direction. Folk will say what they want, but there is no issue for me.’
Laughing off the Hearts rumours, she added: ‘I am sure they are as bemused as I am about where that came from.
‘The internet can often run away with itself and there is nothing in that from them, I’m sure, or from me.
‘It was just one of those daft
The club has to focus on what feeds the club — and that is the first team We are not talking about 12 out 12 in, we are only talking about positions where we need to recruit
stories. That is the void we are in at the moment and people fill the void.
‘Which is why we made the statement last Monday, trying to be honest with supporters.
‘We told them the truth about the landscape the club and football in Scotland is facing.
‘We told them that means that for this period the club has to focus on the thing that effectively feeds the club and that is the first team.’
Hibs are reviewing their youth academy operations as part of a cost-cutting drive. With Motherwell and others, the Leith club are talking to the SFA about relaxing the costly coaching criteria needed to retain ‘elite’ status in Club Academy Scotland.
‘Look, we are absolutely not binning our academy. We are having to react to an unprecedented situation that we and others find ourselves in,’ Dempster continued.
‘That doesn’t mean we are not committed to the young people or that we aren’t committed to the academy and the development of young players. It is just going to change for now.
‘I have heard a lot about the youth academy and the fact we are walking away from that.
‘It just is not true. That is not happening.
‘I’m not getting into names or specifics but we are in consultation with our people to see what that might look like.
‘We are not able to deliver most of the activities we would normally do in the academy and any fair-minded person would say that we then have to make some adaptations and changes.
‘We are all going to have to learn how to do academies in a different way. I don’t think we are different from other clubs, we are just being up front and honest about it.’