VincentGuerin

I don't think that is overlooked. I just don't think it's enough of a reason to explain the investment. Hibs will never generate enough money to be of use to Bournemouth. Foley doesn't need to buy any other clubs to generate revenue. It's incredibly small-fry compared to what he already has. And this idea of a network. Ok, a network for what? Think that one through a bit. A network in and of itself is meaningless. What he may consider worthwhile is a vessel for players as and when it suits Bournemouth. Or a league with no FFP to give his other clubs more flexibility. Or an easier market in which to get work permits. These things all make sense. But none of them fit with the promise that Hibs will remain fully autonomous. So, who to believe... I've given this my best open mind today. I've read the release, I've read the Hibs fan reports from the meeting, I've read all the pro-investment stuff on Twitter and .net etc. I've asked you lads for a clear benefit to Foley beyond the chance to get players game time etc. I've still not seen one explanation for why Foley's getting involved (that doesn't contradict the Hibs autonomy claim) that survives past the merest scrutiny. Not one of the ideas suggested are worth the time and money being spent on this. Anyway. It's time for dinner then the derby with a few cans.

Have you emailed your club about VAR before? Be honest now, Jesus is listening.

I still think we're going to win last Saturday against Rangers.

Ok. Just give up then.

Oh, I'm sure there'll be more money coming. But Hibs are to be sutainable. So, unless we believe Hibs' turnover is going to suddenly massively dwarf Hearts and Aberdeen (and I don't), then it doesn't change the fact that you'll still be doing very well to play group stage football more than one year in five. You're one of the richest clubs in the country as it is and you've never managed this. I find it hard to believe anyone could buy that being the reason for this.

That's decent sounding fitba buzzwords, but what does it mean practically? The level of investment dicsussed is unlikely to lead to Hibs finishing third routinely. Third place maintaining group stage football in the coming years is far from a given. Qualifying for groups through play-offs is very tricky. Hibs being the cheapest route to European football to showcase players sounds good. But it's actually quite unlikely to happen regularly, will be relatively expensive to achieve, and it's not clear what the benefits of "showcasing" players there will be. It's either a very high-risk, low-reward strategy (meaning he's not thought this through) or it's not the strategy at all. My money is on the latter there. Not ruling out the former though. In these situations the most likely answer is usually the correct one. It seems pretty likely that your recruitment and team selection are going to be compromised. It's hard to see a better explanation for the investment. It makes a lot more sense than a very vague "showcase in Europe" dream.

Write to your club.

FWIW, I'd actually have had less of a concern about this deal if they'd said something like: "Hibs will get £6m, they'll get access to great loan players, we'll improve their infrastructure, and, yes, from time to time you'll need to take players we want to get game time. And you'll have to play them. And we'll control that. Overall, we think it's a fair deal." At least with that there's a rationale. What we're being asked to believe is that Hibs are getting all this for basically nothing. I simply do not believe that, and the lack of willingness to reveal the actual deal is something that should concern fans of any club in a situation like this.

To be honest, your response just underlines my points in my post above. Consider what you're being asked to believe: Foley is giving Hibs £6m. Hibs are getting long/medium-terms access to players they couldn't have otherwise afforded at a tiny price. BKs are getting two representatives on the board. Yet, we're seriously being asked to believe that Hibs retain full autonomy in how they run their club. Does that genuinely seem feasible to you? If so, I'd ask you on what basis? What benefit is there to Foley in giving Hibs this deal? I don't think it's an issue of asset-stripping. I think this is an issue of who controls your club and what you can do about it.

This just isn't true. You're not making sense.

@Leith Green What do you think Foley's aim in all this is?

That the £6m will be split between infrastructure projects and the first team. Looking at the existing levels of income outside the OF, it seems unlikely that this is going to elevate Hibs to some higher level.

The back four trade-off is worth it with an opponent as poor at the back as Hibs, imo. I doubt we'll keep a clean sheet tonight, but we should be able to out-score them.

This doesn't really make any sense. You say fans are the paying customer and all else follows from that. Yet, as far as I'm aware nobody has bothered their arse to ask these paying cutomers what they think about anything. So, actually, none of this is driven by the fans.

I'm taking it from what I read from those at the meeting last night.

Mate, if there's one thing we know definitely isn't the answer to this, it's what you've just posted. What's actually interesting is that once the infrastructure stuff is accounted for, there isn't actually going to be much left for a significant spend on the team. Now, I've never bought into the "They'll get us into Europe and make money" narrative. That just doesn't add up in a risk-reward sense. But what is left isn't even going to really make a dent in whether Hibs can be third or not. A lot of this doesn't add up if you take what you're being sold at face value. None of this is a convincing rationale for the investment.

I've read all the stuff on this that I can find, and I've genuinely tried to approach this with as open a mind as possible. If we take the "Hibs retain full autonomy" stuff at face value, then I can't for the life of me see what Foley is paying for. There's no other part of this deal that would require Foley to make significant investment (or any investment) or that couldn't be achieved by existing models of link-up, i.e. informal tie-ins etc. If I've missed something, I'm happy to have it pointed out. And there's also no credible way for this to become a significant income-generator for him. What is the money for? Minority stake, two guys sitting on the board, £6m investment, but Hibs retain full autonomy? I'm sorry, but that's not a reasonable thing to believe. I don't doubt they've put on a slick PR face and presented well. That's what these folk do. But when you dig in, they still haven't credibly answered the question "Why?". Last night saw a presentation by the Gordons' man and seems to have essentially been a propaganda exercise in favour of the new investors. These folks' job is to be slick, and it seems it's worked. The benefits to the Gordons and Bournemouth seem quite obvious, and there seems to have been a concerted effort to rubbish the idea of Hibs fans having any power at their club. Who and what has driven that? It doesn't feel good. Hibs fans now have less power or prospect of power over their club than they have had for years. My personal take is that the idea that Hibs retain full autonomy is very hard to believe in the absence of any other credible motivation for the investment, and that the idea that ownership is limited at a minority stake is simply a meaningless thing to say as it can be altered at any time and nobody can do anything about it. I'd be amazed if they don't own the club in five years in the rules allow, and I think the rules will allow. And the fans have essentially been sweet-talked out of any influence, and seem fine with that. I get that Hibs fans want to be excited, but this doesn't pass the smell test.

I'm certainly not advocating giving them an extra section. I just think we shouldn't be making it unreasonably difficult for Hearts fans to buy a ticket.

I think you spelled Bournemouth C wrong.

They probably won't. But they should be dropping the points requirement to 7 or 8. 15 is OTT. Costs us money, less backing for the team, open goal for the OF morons to criticise.

And now they've changed their tune. Open to all at 3pm! Hibs, that is. You're welcome, everyone.

Several of us emailed the Ticket Office today to explain the situation and ask if there was likely to be any change. We hoped that numbers highlighting the issue might make them see sense. To their credit, we've all received a prompt (and evidently written by a real person) reply. Long and short of it; yes there are tickets left for the derby, but no they will not be available to to anyone other than Roseburn ST holders. It literally doesn't matter how many LPs you have, you can't buy a ticket for the game. As for Celtic, no current plans to lower the 15-point limit, no explanation of the rationale for it. Fucking madness.

Spent much of this morning with various group chats buzzing to get people tikets for the derby and the Celtic game on Sunday. Before I say this, I generally find the ticket office to be very good to deal with and really helpful. But two of our mates are sitting on 14 loyalty points and this renders them unable to buy tickets for either of these home games. It's fucking insane. One of the guys we go with has over 40 points but no ST and he can't legitimitely buy a ticket for the derby even though there seem to be some available on the exchange. For the Hibs game, they haven't opened the ticket exchange to anyone other than Roseburn ST holders, which is just mad. And for the Celtic game they have imposed a 15 point LP limit, meaning a Hearts fan who has attended 14 home games in the last two years against the likes of Ross County, Killie etc cannot buy a ticket. There are almost 600 left! Hearts do a good job filling Tynecastle out, but you need to question some of the decision-making here. There'll be gaps in the crowd for both of these games simply because Hearts are making it unreasonably difficult to buy tickets. Surely for each game a 5 point limit would work, as this would exclude anyone who has only attended those fixtures in the last two years? 15 for Celtic is insane, and not even allowing a public sale (to LP holders) for the derby is beyond words. You could even make a reasonable argument for the Celtic game being 6 or 7. As this would require a Celtic fan to have attended all of our home games with them in the last two years, plus bought for at least one more game in that period. I'd wager the number of such people being zero. f**k me, call it 8 if you want to be careful. But 15 is mad. It's exclusing people who have been to over half our recent home games, and is especially more mad as it excludes people who work Saturdays but could and would come to this game on a Sunday. Looks like there'll be hundreds of empty seats behind the goal on Sunday, with all the resultant criticism from the OF's client journalists. Why are Hearts doing this?

Don't know why, but this has particularly tickled me. Well played.

I think this is a huge part of it, based on what I hear from the Yoof that I work with. I think there are two parts to that. One is that it is simply just factually difficult for young people to buy their own place and set up an independent life. The 20-somethings I work with are all on a decent wage, but hardly any of them own the place they live. Even thinking back to when I started working, this lot are behind me and my mates in terms of where we were at their stage in life in terms of being independent. They can't all just be feckless avocado lovers. It certainly feeds into their attitude to work. I think there's resentment at being asked to put in a shift while getting relatively little for it in return in terms of advancing your life. And the mental health aspect of insecure living conditions and genuine doubt about what your future will look like is something I don't think we fully understand yet. The second part of the issue is that what I've just described is such common knowledge now that I think for a lot of the youngsters disillusion is almost a cultural expectation. I'm not saying they're wrong; I'm saying there's a snowball effect. I genuinely think I'm good with the youngsters at work. I cover for them where I can and I try to see where they're coming from. But we haven't yet found a full understanding of each other. It's my perception that a lot of them lack resillience. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we should say no at work more often and prioritise ourselves. Maybe what I see as a lack of resillience is just them showing a better sense of their own wellbeing than I do. I've got to be honest, there have been plenty of times where I've given someone a good hearing, shown all the concern and given all the advice I can, given all the practical help that I can, and still been left with a feeling that the kindest advice I could give them (but never would) is "really, for now, just grit your teeth, get this done, then get up the road". But it does lead to problems as their expectations of what work should be and what it should provide them with simply do not match up with current reality, or with the expectations those older than them often have.