Hearts chief executive Andrew McKinlay has underlined the financial importance of a third-place finish in the cinch Premiership as the club adjust to life after Robbie Neilson.
The 42-year-old’s tenure as Jambos boss came to an end on Sunday after a 3-0 defeat at home to St Mirren on Saturday – a fourth straight league loss – saw them slip below Aberdeen into fourth place, with his assistant Lee McCulloch also departing.
Steven Naismith, the Gorgie club’s B team manager, was appointed interim manager for the final seven games of the season, and his first match is at Edinburgh rivals Hibernian on Saturday.
McKinlay insists Neilson’s dismissal was “not a knee-jerk or gut decision on the back of one result” but says the quest to finish behind the Old Firm – which will guarantee group-stage European football again, should Celtic or Rangers, as expected, win the Scottish Cup – is paramount.
He said: “I think that (the importance of finishing third) may skew things slightly. Maybe in other seasons you would be sitting there thinking, ‘Is finishing fourth a big deal compared to finishing third?’
“Maybe in the past, Hearts have thought, ‘Is it a huge deal? Does it make a massive difference if you make one extra round in Europe?’ But the fact is, at the moment, that’s not the case (that it is potentially only one extra round).
“At the moment the situation is, depending on who wins the Scottish Cup, the third place team… and we have experienced that so we more than anyone know exactly what comes with that – both financially and the status as a club, what that means to everyone in the club. So it is important.
“The turnover (in finishing third will increase) by around five or six million pounds extra. The profit on that will depend on your costs and where you are playing but it’s a significant amount of money in relation to our turnover.”
After speaking to the players at the club’s Oriam training base, McKinlay remains confident that they can turn it around under former Hearts attacker Naismith.
He said: “I’ve actually just come down from Oriam, where I addressed the players. I very rarely speak to the players. That’s not my job.
“So I spoke to them before I handed over to Steven and his team. The only message I got across to them, and I have watched this group of players this season, (is that) I have seen them perform magnificently on occasions so I know they are capable of it.
“That’s all I said to them. I said I don’t know what will motivate them for the rest of the season but said to them to do it for yourselves.
“Have pride and get us back to where we believe we should be. Did they listen to me? I just don’t know but I genuinely believe we have a group of players that should be in third place and I believe we will get back to third place by the end of the season.”
