Budge to change pay model in bid to incentivise players

Hearts are changing their wage structure by incentivising more player contracts rather than paying large basic salaries.

Ann Budge, the club owner, admitted she learned lessons last season and will not allow the first-team squad to become enlarged with so many high-earners.

Despite a senior squad of 35 players and a total wage bill exceeding £8 million, the club were relegated.

With Robbie Neilson back in charge, Budge has revised her payment model. Contracts issued from now on will include more incentives and lower basic wages.

“I did look at the model we have for paying players,” she explained. “I had taken the view that we should pay a fair wage for a job rather than this guy gets a bonus for one thing and another guy gets a bonus for something else.

“I had changed that when I came in [in 2014] and that put a lot of pressure on us when we had a lot of players out injured. They were still getting paid, which would have happened anyway but they wouldn’t have been paid quite so much.

“I will look carefully when I do take players on about how I pay them, and I don’t want to let the squad get too big, no matter the temptation.

“Having said that, when you have all the injuries we had, and the only answer seems to be bringing somebody in, then your squad gets bigger. It makes training, management and all these things so much harder.”