Aim Here

But that's not the whole story, because other teams will be gaining points from beating Motherwell. Aberdeen would have played Motherwell twice (I think - at least once) and so they'd be at least third if Motherwell was hell-bent on losing all games. Would Hearts overtake Aberdeen?

The SFA and the CAS are the same part of the proceedings; the CAS is the SFA's independent arbitrator.

To us laymen, legal arguments usually seem open and shut until you hear the other side. If they don't, then the lawyers have no business being in the courtroom. Then again, I think I can drive a few holes through Hearts' petition, but I'm not sure how much of that is Dunning-Kruger-style cognitive bias...

Probably not possible, given that at least 2 points per game are dished out to other teams. Also, Hearts would still be in the bottom half of the split, so even if they get the points for it, they're still 7th.

The judge has successfully represented Rangers players vs the SFA in his pre-judge days as an advocate, and according to JKB he brought up a 1965 case of St Johnstone vs the SFA. He presumably knows enough about football to do the appropriate legal stuffs. He also helped a roofing company take Craig Whyte to court, and represented the News of the World against militant revolutionary turned cringeworthy Celtic Da Tommy Sheridan. He has had a knack for showing up on the Rangers side of the law...

Also I've heard the words 'free hit' bandied about. Thistle has an anonymous backer for their court case, and Hearts is famous for their magic money tree...

Apparently you email them and get a phone number and access code.

Their idea of a 'win' tomorrow will be 'not getting the case immediately punted to the SFA'. That's an extremely low bar for victory and I wouldn't be too surprised if that happens. It's once the case starts getting looked at on it's merits that the problems start to arise.

To be fair to Levein, his statement was that Hearts Management wouldn't loan Cowdenbeath any players, not that he wouldn't. My guess is that he was probably positing what he'd do in their position, but he didn't actually say so.

Eh, whit the f**k did you just fuckin' call me, ya wide c**t? I'll huv you ken I was top boy in the Oxgangs CCS and I've been involved in hunners o' swedges against the ICF, the ASC and the Chelsea Headhunters, and I huv over 300 confirmed chibs. I was personally trained in unarmed and armed street combat by both Bradley Welsh and Frank Begbie and I'm the top hardman in the entire East Coast of Scotland. You are naething to me but jist anidder gadgie. Ah'll wipe you the f**k out wi' precision the likes of which has never been seen before in the world of Scottish fitba', mark my fucken words. You think you can get away with saying that shite to me oer the Internet? Think again, ya bampot. As we speak I am alerting my extensive network o' Hibs Baby Crew spies across Edinburgh and yer IP is being traced right now so you better prepare for a doin', c**t. The doin' that wipes out the pathetic wee thing you call your life. You're fucken deid, kid. I can be anywhere, anytime and I can batter you senseless in seven hundred ways, and that's just wi my bare hands. Not only am I extensively handy wi' me bare hands, but I have access to the entire arsenal and manpower of the Capital City Service and I will use it to the full extent to wipe your miserable wee erse aff the face of the continent, ya wee radge. If only you'd kent what retribution that clivver wee comment o yours was aboot to bring on you, maybe you'd have shut yer fucking mooth. But you didnae, and now you're paying the price, ya fucken gobshite. I will shite all oer you, and you'll droon in it. Yer fucken broon breid, ken?

I'm sure we will. I think he's too dim to be embarrassed by having his dire hard man patter exposed to the world - he was still referring to it last night in terms of 'Crawford Bridge shat it' or words to that effect.

Even when Whitty fucked up, I'd never think he wasn't trying, and it was always a case of him having the right idea, but his legs not being able to pull off what his brain was telling them to do. Your worst case scenario is that he'll be a good influence in your backroom.

We have had an influx of maroon weaponry recently, probably due to a mention of P&B on Kickback's Giant Thread of Seethe and Delusion. Gorgie Greatness would be the part of the influx that hung around for more than about 3 posts. MegaRichJambos seems to be too over the top to be serious, though it's getting increasingly hard to judge.

If you're going the David Goodwillie/Craig Thompson route and soiling your team's image by putting some widely loathed hate figure on the payroll, the least you should expect is for him to be super-cheap compared to what he'd be worth without the baggage. Doubling Malky's wages for the first year should surely be a dealbreaker.

Butteries aren't huge in Shetland, but they are there. The ones I had when I was last up there came from the Walls bakery, and perfectly adequate they were too...

Just to chime in with the baked goods survey, the preferred nomenclature in Shetland is 'butteries'. Is someone drawing up a dialect map?

Bollocks. You do know Hearts accounts are public information, don't you? Hearts turnover in 2014-15 - their Championship winning season - was £6,982,000. Turnover in 2015-16 - the first season in the Premiership post-relegation - was £9,967,000. That's a difference of £2,985,000. Where's Budge expecting the other £5 million to come from? Is she including two-years worth of bung from James Anderson in the figure or something?

He's a former chairman of Hearts, so he's one of the Jambo pantheon, alongside Ann Budge herself and the Romanov chap who now lives in a submarine, like a Bond villain. Can't fault the Hearts on the colourfulness of their choice of chairpeople...

I see the use of the word 'misleading' again. Could the conversation have gone something like: LD: Hello successful businesswoman Ann Budge. What can I do for you? AB: Leslie, you're some sort of lawyer and they never did prove that money laundering thing so you're probably okay. Take a look at this letter that's just come from Neil Doncaster LD: Hmmm, these guys are saying that those three clubs are respondents. I've not read the petition, but I'm sure that's wrong and misleading for a start. Wasn't the title just HMFC versus the SPFL? AB: Aha. Well that's good enough for me. I'll speak to Gilson Gray in the morning, but first I'll get the lad who does the website to put up a statement. They'll read it out on Sportsound so the fans will know we're still fighting our corner. Thanks, Leslie. LD: No problem, successful businesswoman Ann Budge.

The relief asked for won't materially affect Celtic, in that they 're not trying to unaward the Premiership, merely unrelegate Hearts and Thistle. If it goes to compo, it might hit their prize money, but that goes for all the SPFL clubs.

I'm sure they have a lot of scope for judicial action, but the notion of a judge going way over and beyond the petitioner's demands to inflict a ton of damage on Scottish football seems like we're straying into 'maverick judge' territory. It would be like a small claims dispute between a homeowner and a plumber where the plumber asks for his £500 bill to be paid and the judge orders the demolition of the house instead.

I think you mean SFA. Referring the matter to the SPFL would certainly be dispositive of the matter, but I suspect Hearts would have immediate grounds for appeal...

No. They're not trying to void the vote or suspend the league. They're asking either for promotion/relegation to not happen, or alternatively, for £10 million to be divvied up between them and Thistle.

Not really. It's common practice for schedulers to pair off clubs with two teams - one is their closest city rival, and the other is some other team in the same league, if these happen to be different. For next season, it's just a case of the two sets of pairings will be between the Dundee and Edinburgh teams. Basically, for every matchweek, Hibs play at home at the same time as Dundee, and likewise for Heats/United. There might be issues of local scheduling (for instance, you might want having Hearts play at home at the same time as some big event at Murrayfield, but there's no corresponding Dundee issue) but those can be adjusted by ad hoc devices like moving a game to a Sunday or weekday evening. I'm sure fixture scheduling is a complicated business, but team-pairing between two leagues is one of the simpler aspects.

The burden of proof is on Hearts. Hearts have to provide a chain of reasoning (and suitable factual backup) to show that the SPFL's process was unlawful and unfair and warrants compensation of £10 million quid. If the SPFL or United knock one link out of that chain, they win. If United's lawyers convince the judge that, say, the outcome of the season end vote was entirely fair, it doesn't matter if Kevin Clancy, acting for the SPFL, puts on a pair of clown shoes, blows a whistle and awards a penalty to Ann Budge. The case still gets chucked.