Aim Here

The sinister Machiavellian wiles of Peter Lawwell reach far and wide. I have it on good authority that Lawwell was the guy who put Hibs up to hiring Kamberi to kick this all off in the first place.

Those aren't mutually exclusive. In fact Leeann Dempster IS pretty much a middle-aged middle-manager, though at the younger end of middle age...

How exactly are they going to enforce the chanting ban? The supporters may well be masked up, which makes it hard to suss out who is and isn't chanting...

We'll need someone to keep Ryan Porteus, David Gray and/or Martin Boyle company in the physiotherapy room. Extended periods of social isolation can be a problem factor for professional athletes, you know.

Edinburgh Evening News goes with 5pm on Thursday. Sun says 5pm Wednesday. Seems that this is a job for the terrible journalism thread. https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/sport/football/hearts/spfl-set-challenge-hearts-partick-thistles-ps10m-court-petition-next-48-hours-2892950

Isn't it 5pm on Thursday?

Letting Daniel Stendel know he's been sacked by reading about his replacement in the paper. Using the wages he waived due to the Corona lockdown to pay for a guy to take over his job. The Hearts Human Resources Team really are some boys. At least Danny doesn't seem too miffed about it... https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/5731554/stendel-hearts-neilson/

Your team has been a lower-league one for most of it's history, so they're probably still carrying around that seaside league mindset...

Did he die wearing a stupid little hat?

It just makes it all the better reading if/when the court slaps it down, or the case is settled for bobbins, and the echo chamber devolves into rage and conspiracy theories.

From the looks of other entries in that roster, AB is probably not 'Ann Budge' but placeholder initials for someone whose name shouldn't be divulged (for instance, if it's their identity being breached by the alleged contempt of court). Where there's multiple people complaining, it's sometimes listed as 'AB, CD and EF' or similar. The law mentioned states: "In any case where a court (having power to do so) allows a name or other matter to be withheld from the public in proceedings before the court, the court may give such directions prohibiting the publication of that name or matter in connection with the proceedings as appear to the court to be necessary for the purpose for which it was so withheld. " I suspect this might be related to the recent child abuse court cases and is just a coincidence, yes.

Hearts aren't asking the SPFL to do it, they're trying to get the courts to force the SPFL to do it. It's still a long shot, IMO.

Amusingly, Thistle's case is actually better than Hearts' one; they're disputing a vote which didn't end the Premiership season early but ended the three lower tiers. The SFPL might impress on the judge that Hearts assented to the season end decision (the unfair action that they claim hurt them) and did so knowing what they claim they didn't know at the earlier vote. They harmed themselves, essentially. There's a very slim chance Hearts get relegated and Thistle don't. I don't think it would be a 12/12/10/10 - nobody's asking for that. It would be a case of the current league structure, but with only partial relegation/promotion.

To be fair, MegaRichJambos isn't a Hearts fan. Just some random on a second account having a wee giggle to himself at the replies he's getting.

They'll need some time to actually read the SPFL's reply first.

My fantasy scenario is now Jambo scapegoat Craig Levein leading United to a top 4 slot in the Premiership coupled with Championship supremo Robbie Nielson's Hearts failing to achieve promotion (extra bonus points if Dundee and/or St Mirren are involved, somehow). When they realise that Craig was never the problem, it was the team all along, it would send Hearts fans hurtling even further into a psycho-emotional abyss of Marianas Trench proportions. Please make this happen.

You forget that before Ann Budge became a successful businesswoman, she was a guerrilla fighter for the PFLP in Lebanon.

The relief that Hearts and Thistle are asking for is not that the judge voids the vote, so much as overrule it so that promotion and relegation shouldn't happen (or alternatively that Thistle and Hearts get compensated with £squillions).

In the absence of a leaked/published SPFL reply to the Hearts Court of Session petition, I'm looking for clues as to what their defence is going to be. The Daily Record has this. While Ann Budge isn't even willing to sully her phone by having it take part in a call to a League 2 chairman even in the context of an actual SPFL vote on reconstruction, the Record is reporting that United and Raith are drumming up support for their court case among club chairmen. Thing is, while it's obvious what a a chairman's support can do for you in a straight-up vote, it's less obvious what they can do in a civil court case where they're not even named. Looking at the case, I suspect what's going on is that even if Hearts overturn the Dundee vote, they still have the (huge) hurdle to show that the clubs would have voted for something else had they been informed differently. There's a whole bunch of verbiage of the form "no reasonable member, properly informed, could have considered that the Written Resolution was in the interests of the Company" trying to give that impression. If this gets as far as evidence being presented, my guess is that it's going to be flatly contradicted by actual, factual, club chairmen, stating that they were, or at least are now, properly informed, that they are, indeed, a bunch of very reasonable folks, and that they'd still vote exactly the same way for reasons of sporting integrity and fairness and that Hearts are at it. The fact that the petition isn't demanding a retake of the vote, but just overrule by the judge is highly suggestive that Hearts know they'd only lose again.

In that case, we should probably noise up @HibsFan to remind him to add in the dossier debacle on the original post.

If the SPFL are due money to Sky, it's surely a smarter move to pay them off in kind (through, say, throwing them the advertising) than actually digging out cash and paying them directly, which would cost more. Because no cash might transfer from Sky to the SPFL in a bank account, it might look like 'free sponsorship' to the usual zoomers perpetually on the lookout for fuel for self righteous outrage, but it's actually a good thing.

He did, but he's back under another name now, which I forget.

And despite that, there's still 400 Sevco fans in attendance...

Click his name - he's banned. How does clicking his name clarify whether or not he's been banned? I just get the profile page with no indications of banneditude, or otherwise (though the last two posts with the red dot pileon is a minor hint).

Kenny Miller will come out of retirement and play at least one game of competitive football.