Hearts Statement

Hearts have released a mid season report which might be of interest to this site, particularly as it relates to costs incurred through bad behaviour of football fans and indeed abuse of managers. I'll only include the pertinent section from the report that can be found here:

http://www.heartsfc.co.uk/news/4914

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2. Unacceptable Behaviour at Football Stadiums

We have made it clear over the past 18 months that unacceptable behavior will not be tolerated by the club and have indeed gone so far as to ban a number of our supporters from the stadium. We have stressed repeatedly that we want Tynecastle to be a family-friendly stadium where all supporters can come and enjoy the atmosphere in one of Scotland’s most iconic stadiums, in a safe and carefree environment.

It was, therefore, with much regret that for the third time this season, we had to call the Police…in this case to the Hearts v Motherwell game…due to rival fans fighting in the streets, in the immediate environs of the stadium…both before and after the game. I cannot begin to tell you how angry this makes me, when we are working so hard to put the club back at the heart of the community. Instead of talking proudly about the team’s superb performance, or indeed our supporters’ unprecedented loyalty (yet another home sell-out), I am instead having to hold meetings with the authorities regarding how we are going to address this behaviour problem.

The outcome of these meetings is quite simply that we have had to agree that we will have no Police-free matches, between now and the end of the season. This will cost the club between £40,000-£50,000.

Apart from the reputational damage that this behavior causes the club, its employees and its supporters, this is £40,000-£50,000 that we cannot put towards our stadium and facilities improvements programme.

Allowing a tiny minority of supporters to bring the club’s reputation into disrepute is something we will not tolerate. We will be clamping down on supporters who behave unacceptably. This will mean more stringent checks and more surveillance both inside and outside the stadium. While this is very disappointing, we are confident that the majority of true supporters will agree that action must be taken.

On a similar note, many of you will have seen in the media that Hearts is under formal investigation because of a number of incidents that took place during the recent Hearts v Dundee United fixture. I will, of course, robustly defend the club’s position on this matter, but there is one area which I cannot defend. In particular, it would appear that excessive verbal abuse was directed at the opposition manager. While the manager (Mixu Paatelainen) was personally both understanding and pragmatic in his acceptance that “this happens", it has been reported by the match delegate that this reached unacceptable proportions. As a consequence, additional stewarding will be put in place in this area of the stadium, along with video cameras, and any behavior of this nature, in future, will be robustly dealt with.

In summary, we will now have a police presence at all matches, along with additional stewarding… all at a significant cost to the club. I would also remind you to use the Help Text line should you feel something needs to be addressed.
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I've put in bold the most important bit of the statement by Budge. That is of course the fact that they are going out of there way to sort out the ugly abuse that Mixu received at Tynecastle. It's certainly the first time that Hearts have been moved to protect an opposition manager, probably because in this circumstance he didn't bring it on himself.

Well done Hearts.


Oh yeah, they have done well financially, lots of home sell outs etc etc. I'm not letting it sidetrack me from getting you all in a tizzy about Hearts and Neil Lennon.