Craig Levein has the perfect chance to defend Hearts when the SFA licencing process begins at the end of March.
With three Europa League places available to the SFA there is all to play for with the second and third placed teams in the Premiership going into the second UEFA competition along-with the Scottish Cup winners or runners up.
Unlike in Scotland, UEFA operate a system of Financial Fair Play to ensure that clubs don’t go heavily into debt in order to gain the prize money that comes from European competitions.
Over a three year period clubs are allowed to run up losses of €5m with Hearts and Aberdeen referencing that figure in their accounts over the last two years.
At Ibrox Sevco operate by different rules. In order to get beaten by Progres Niederkorn the Ibrox club made losses of £9m in season 14/15, £3.3m the following year then £6.7m in the year to June 2017. A total of £20m over three seasons with a loss of £5-6m expected for the current season.
Speaking yesterday BT Sport reported Levein saying: “I’m doing what I think is the right thing for this football club, for my football club.
“People say things and have said things in the past that I think are having a go at the club for whatever reason and I don’t like that.
“I feel my position in the managerial role is to stand up for the club so I’m going to do that.”
Rather than checking Scott Brown’s disciplinary record Levein can turn his reasearch to something more positive and give Hearts a chance at the Europa League rather than allowing the SFA to effectively self certify clubs into UEFA tournaments.