Budge still wants seat at Scottish top table

ANN BUDGE last night spoke of her intent to eventually secure a position of power at the top of Scottish football. The Hearts owner narrowly failed in her bid to win a place on the SPFL board in July, though she will try again next summer, and has stated a desire to tackle some of the game’s wider issues. The Edinburgh-based businesswoman’s £2.5million investment was key to Hearts emerging from administration last year and, last week, she floated the idea of extending her planned five-year stay at Tynecastle — primarily as a means of funding the construction of a new main stand.

Confirming her desire to offer her financial expertise by standing for election to the board again, she said: ‘I will no doubt stand again, yes. Only because when I came into football, I said I would like to make a contribution in the wider sense, so you’ve got to put your money where your mouth is.

‘I would like to get involved and encourage more discussion about lots of the big issues that are facing football. I think dialogue is essential.

‘The more of us who are prepared to devote the time and the energy to getting involved in the game, the better.’ Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland, the 67-year-old (below), who amassed a personal fortune from the IT industry, also spoke of her hope that her personal story could act as an inspiration for women to succeed in football, as well as in wider industry.

She added: ‘I’ve always taken the view that if you are good at your job and want to do something in life, the fact you are a woman as opposed to a man should not preclude that.

‘I have worked in maledominated industries all of my life and the approach I’ve taken is that I don’t feel I have to justify anything because I’m a woman.

‘If I can do something, I can do it — and I encourage all women to have that view.

‘Women in football is actually a very current topic. I’m talking about it on Tuesday at the SFA convention.

‘Purely from a business view, there’s plenty of evidence that boards that have a mix of men and women are now recognised as performing better than all-male or all-female boards.

‘We do have different skills and approaches to lots of things and it would do no harm at all to get more women involved in all elements in football.’

In a wide-ranging interview on The Kaye Adams Programme, Budge also spoke of her pride at securing the charity Save the Children as a jersey sponsor for the next three seasons, as opposed to a pay-day loan company.

Unnamed benefactors have financed the groundbreaking deal that sees the club, as well as the organisation, benefit financially.

‘We set out to get the pride back in being a Hearts supporter and that means doing things in a particular way,’ Budge added.

‘We want it to be a familyfocused club that drives certain behaviour and also influences your decisions on things like who your shirt sponsor should be.

‘If you genuinely want football to be more of a family sport, which I think it should, we have to look at what we’re actually saying to all these young fans — what we’re promoting.

‘I’m as commercial as the next person and I realise that, for years now, it has been drinks companies and so forth that have put money into football.

‘But pay-day lending and everything that stood for — how can you have that on your shirt but be saying you want to invest in your community and youth and get kids as supporters as early as we can? ‘It’s got to make sense and Save the Children is just beyond my wildest dreams, really.’ Budge was similarly pleased to oversee the club recently becoming an accredited living-wage employer. ‘There are various underlying principles which I think underpin any good business,’ she continued. ‘You look after your employees — you don’t take advantage of them.

‘The living wage when it came, to me, was quite frankly a no-brainer. ‘It was the right thing to do as a club and we did it no problem.’