NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS

Hearts chief Ann Budge needs to forget about re-organising the Premiership and move on, says Kris Boyd

FOR a very successful businesswoman, Ann Budge isn’t half a lousy judge of character.

Having made millions from doing deals, you would think she’d have the savvy to sense when she’s being led up the garden path.

But apparently not.

She’s had blind faith in certain people since taking over at Hearts, with big-money contracts being handed out left, right and centre on players who probably couldn’t believe their luck.

Now it seems she’s been given some questionable advice on the best way to persuade rival clubs to save the Jambos from the Championship.

Honestly, it’s like one blunder after another.

Budge shouldn’t have been so quick to trust. But I wonder if the penny has now dropped that she’s surrounded by people who are in it for themselves.

The upshot is the mismanagement at Hearts — from top to bottom — is the reason they’re heading for the Championship.

Budge needs to get that into her head.

Lobbying the Premiership clubs for league reconstruction is a waste of time, both hers and everyone else’s. Especially with the confrontational and passive- aggressive tone she seems to think will work.

It’s time she realised Hearts have been relegated — rightly or wrongly — and started dealing with it.

The same way, rightly or wrongly, that Celtic are champions, in case she hasn’t noticed. Prize money has been handed out. All this pleading for a change to the leagues isn’t doing anyone any good.

If Budge wants to help Hearts and the teams around her then she should be talking more to the chairmen in the Championship and below and trying to come up with something that helps all of them.

Because for me, when the Sky TV deal kicks in and matches are played, even behind closed doors, the top flight will be fine without Hearts.

If she really has the best interests of Scottish football at heart, then that’s who she should be talking to.

Get in touch with the people at Partick Thistle and Falkirk and see if there’s something they can do together to help the clubs at that end of the ladder.

Forget about the Premiership because, frankly, that’s none of her business now.

I have to laugh, though. All the talk of operating for the benefit of everyone in Scottish football cracks me up, it really does.

I realised in 2012 everyone was in it for themselves when they sent the biggest club in this country to the bottom tier.

And another thing, if St Mirren were in this same situation, does anyone think Budge would bat an eyelid? No, me neither.

She’d be sitting at home without a second thought for Saints.

And yet here she is, pleading for a deal that effectively reduces the income at Jim Goodwin’s club and others for next season. Do me a favour.

That’s what sticks in my throat about all this. Sure, you could argue Hearts were given a raw deal with the season ending early. But would there have been such an outcry had it been St Mirren, Ross County or Hamilton Accies? Not a chance.

Hearts are where they are and they need to deal with it, pure and simple.

Don’t tell me they had games against the bottom six to play, and they would have got out of it. They won only four games in the league all season and three of those victories came against Hibs, twice, and Rangers.

In their last game in Paisley they were meant to be fighting for their lives, but instead they had all the judgment of Dominic Cummings — but with far less determination to stay in a job.

They need to take a leaf out of Partick Thistle’s book now and move on with some dignity.

The Jags have shown true class throughout all this. They were relegated even though a game in hand could have kept them up. That’s what I call an injustice.

But after initially taking a stance, they quickly accepted the decision and started making plans for their future.

Hearts haven’t done that and are determined to string out their fight as long as possible, even talking about legal action.

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That’s right, the club who say they’re looking out for the whole of Scottish football want to sue the SPFL and its clubs if they don’t get their way. You couldn’t make it up.

Budge should be looking closer to home. She should be analysing where things went wrong, and it shouldn’t take her very long.

If she still can’t work it out, then she should look back to some of my old columns, because I think I’ve been pretty much spot on with that club for a while.

I got slaughtered when I played at Tynecastle, because I told it like it is, but I just shrugged it off and smiled. Fact is, I know some Hearts fans and they know I’m right, because they’ve told me.

That’s fine by me, but pundits like myself — and newspaper reporters — have pretty much got things bang on in recent months where Hearts are concerned.

Even Michael Stewart has called this one correctly, and that’s saying something!

But this self-pity act of theirs has worn thin. The world-is-against-us routine doesn’t wash when you think how much help Hearts got from the SPFL when building their new stand.

The Premiership will be fine without them.

It’s Hearts as a football club that needs major reconstruction. Just as much as the SPFL board.