Devil remains in the detail as Hearts try to convert critics

The club’s board of directors made a public commitment last month to sell Tynecastle and move into Murrayfield Stadium as tenants of the Scottish Rugby Union. This was reported as breaking news last night on Scotland Today, which will be a matter of contempt for Hearts supporters who have spent the past three weeks in furious debate over whether the club should stay or go.

After a period of what appeared to be apathy following the announcement of the proposed - but failed - groundshare with Hibs at Straiton, Hearts supporters have started to raise serious objections to the sale of Tynecastle and a move to Murrayfield. The Heart of Midlothian Supporters Trust started the ball rolling by campaigning for Hearts to remain at Tynecastle "unless and until there is clear and specific information that demonstrates the need to move". Leslie Deans, the former chairman who remains a major shareholder, has also raised objections to the strategy.

This week, the Federation of Hearts Supporters warned a move to Murrayfield "would be a death knell for the club" while detailing a lack of faith in the board of directors.

The emergence of Not Fit For Purpose is a response to supporters’ concerns, and an attempt by chief executive Chris Robinson to persuade fans that a move is unavoidable rather than an option the board has chosen. It is also, just as significantly, an attempt to diminish the importance of the financial benefit of selling the ground to the status of an added benefit arising from other more pressing considerations. A sizeable section of the Hearts support is convinced that the move is based on the need to repay part of the club’s 17.6 million debt. The club’s annual report confirms that Hearts intend to use the sale of the ground to facilitate a payment of 750,000 to SMG by July next year.

In fact, the impact of the proceeds of the ground sale on the existing debt is not mentioned until page 15 of the 18-page report, almost as an afterthought.

As should be expected the document is persuasive, and appears to provide a feasible case for selling Tynecastle. However, it is far from exhaustive, and as detailed elsewhere on these pages it makes no mention of the possibility of staying at Tynecastle and playing European games at Murrayfield - or indeed any mention at all of ways the club could stay at Tynecastle.

Robinson has demonstrated at agms, meetings with fans and at press conferences that he can be a skilled communicator when it comes to stating his case. Yesterday, it was clear he had achieved the desired effect, with a number of Hearts fans resigned to leaving Tynecastle after reading the report.

As ever, the devil is in the detail. Much of what Robinson says in the report has to be examined rather than taken on face value if supporters are to approve of a plan from a chief executive who has presided over record losses and an ever-increasing record level of debt. It is perhaps no surprise that the report gives no indication of a desire to stay at Tynecastle, or a will to explore with supporters every avenue that could keep the club in Gorgie. Robinson has stated recently that even a cash injection of 100 million would not be enough to keep Hearts at Tynecastle, which leaves the observer in no doubt that the will to stay has gone. It is inconceivable that an admittedly unlikely cash injection of 100 million would not overcome the development difficulties at Tynecastle - and leave enough change to allow the club to continue losing money for another 30 years.

The main stand at Tynecastle is now likely to become the focus of the club’s argument for quitting Gorgie. That the 100-year-old structure needs to be replaced is not in doubt, but it appears that the only option the club has considered seriously is a two-tier replacement with a capacity of 8,000. At a time when Hearts know better than most clubs that they must live within their means, is it perhaps necessary to consider a scaled-down version of the original plan? In addition, the old stand does not appear to be condemned, and its rebuilding could be postponed until financial stability is achieved, whether by the present board or their successors.

Yet aside from the issues raised in Not Fit For Purpose, there is one other intriguing aspect of the board’s intentions that brings the issue right up to date. The document is intended to persuade supporters of the need to move, but in reality the board decided to press ahead with the sale of Tynecastle long before its belated attempt at consultation with supporters.

Last month, Robinson said the club intended to complete the sale of the ground by July next year, and a week ago today he confirmed that negotiations have begun already over the sale of the stadium, announcing at a press conference: "We are in active discussions with the SRU about moving there [to Murrayfield] and we are in active discussions about the possibility of realising this land value."

To date, however, the stadium has not appeared on the open market. Has a private buyer been identified already?