Blue Knight switches to maroon

Former Blue Knight Gordon McKie is in talks with BDO about taking Hearts out of administration.

McKie, who served as chief executive of the Scottish Rugby Union for six years, was head hunted by Brian Kennedy last year as the Hibs fan attempted to save Rangers from liquidation.

Kennedy’s Blue Knights lost out to Charles Green.

Despite that setback Kennedy has been involved in talks with McKie over plans for Hearts but hasn’t formally joined the consortium looking to salvage the club.

Bryan Jackson of BDO has been handed the task of saving Hearts with 3,000 season tickets needing to be sold by July 6 to give the club a chance of starting next season.

Over £1m was raised by Hearts supporters through a share issue in December to pay off a tax bill. Seven thousand fans bought season tickets prior to administration with that money spent before BDO walked into Tynecastle.

Saving Hearts from liquidation looks an imposing task, with Tynecastle in Lithuanian ownership, but McKie is hopeful that a deal can be done before August 31 to give the club a fighting chance of retrieving a 15 point deficit for going into administration.

“I’ve got the funding based on what we perceive to be the value of the club and we could get on with this next week if that was possible,” McKie told The Scotsman. “But BDO have only just been appointed and they have a lot of things to sift through.

“They need to evaluate what is real and what isn’t. I would hope in the next two or three weeks we will have clarity as to the process. BDO will know then what level of interest they’ve got. And hopefully they’ll have eyeballed prospective bidders and will know who is serious.”

Looking back on his experience with Rangers a year ago McKie added: “I did some diligence on behalf of Brian and the Blue Knights, but it wasn’t to be because the process that was run by Duff & Phelps had some interesting twists in it.”

In an attempt to drum up season ticket sales manager Gary Locke and some first team players are visiting Tynecastle today to speak with supporters.