r/HeartofMidlothianFC

Just saw reports saying Hearts are confident Tony Bloom’s investment won’t cause any problems with UEFA rules for Europe next season. There was a bit of concern because of the Brighton and Union SG connections, but it sounds like things were set up properly from the start. Really can’t wait for the qualifying round draw now. European nights at Tynecastle are going to be unreal.

Paywalled article but basically states Tom Renauld has signed for the club

Applicable Segment from Article:St Johnstone winger Josh McPake and French midfielder Tom Renaud have both committed their futures to Hearts ahead of the 2026/27 campaign… Renaud has also signed a contract to move to Scotland from the French third-tier club Versailles. He watched Hearts’ 2-1 win over Rangers from the Tynecastle directors’ box earlier this month.

*Disclaimer - I think this list was initially compiled by a Rangers fan, and there are a couple in here that I personally think are on the softer side.

But you will NEVER convince me that this number of ‘honest mistakes’ isn’t skewed in terms of who benefits from it. Some of these are actually hilarious in terms of how bad they are.

As its the end of the season there is many shit especially from the daily record and fans talking about shankland leaving to rangers or something, i know this is just to stir the media but in general i cant really see shankland leaving hearts for the foreseeable future or ever, he is the highest paid, the captain the main man, top goal scorer, he gets Europe aswell, he knows the league so well and the best striker we've had in modern hearts history, i genuinely cant see him wearing another clubs shirt, i cant even see him playing in England or Europe idk if its just my opinion or what the general opinion is. i might be totally off it, i cant even see him going to rangers ever idk why that's so big in discussion?

As I'm sure we all are I'm absolutely gutted with Saturday, however I'm still very proud of what we did. Ultimately in my opinion we didn't do enough even with the decisions that went against us.

However, splitting the old firm in the first year of Bloom's plan does give me hope for the future. Personally I think for us to challenge straight away again next year Celtic would need to have another shit summer and potentially a Nancy repeat, which I'm not sure I see happening (but if it does I'll be buzzing). However I do think I see us toppling the old firm sometime within the 10 year plan Bloom set, and I think we could split the old firm once or twice within that time as well (especially next if Rohl continues his poor post-split form into the start of next season).

Intrigued as to what everyone else thinks will happen in the coming season and coming years. 🇱🇻

now dont get me wrong, i am absolutely gutted that we've lost the league but im not as heartbroken as i thought i would be. this entire campaign isn't a one off. last year i had little hope for the club.(get 3rd place, europe and beat hibs)<- that was really what i used to think our best goals for the rest of my life would be if im being honest but now i genuinely believe we can win the league not once but multiple times in my lifetime. all thanks to tony bloom, the man who brought a league one club to the top part of the premier league, and managed to sell players for £100m+. he has brought in some of our best players in the past decade in one season who can be sold for alot which we will need to get used too but its all part of the plan, we will never compete financially with celtic and rangers but Brighton dont compete financially with the big 6 yet still perform well every season. after many many years This is a new era of hearts, and scottish football, i genuinley see us miles ahead of Aberdeen and hibs now and they cant keep up. I see us getting european football every year, competeing for the title every year and competing for cups every year, this season is just a taste of whats ahead.

https://preview.redd.it/tyrzu1yiv22h1.png?width=813&format=png&auto=webp&s=6498b13e07e22c0c67414dc01f52572bc5ca5b5f

80 points wasn't good enough to win the league. We were close but not close enough. Failure is a part of winning. We can only focus on the things we can influence. Ourselves. We had an outstanding first half to the season, but our form dropped in the second half, particularly our away form.

Games like Kilmarnock and Livingston away caused our loss, not referring decisions. Yes we had poor decisions against us at Fir Park. But we also had VAR decisions in our favour. St Mirren's '3rd' goal was embarrassing to benefit from. We had 2 at Ibrox when we won 2-0. There's no conspiracy or corruption. I believe it's more fear from Ref's and all-around incompetency.

The Refs didn't lose us the league. The Celtic game shouldn't be replayed. That patter is poor from our fans. I expect that from Hibs, not Hearts. Take defeat as a lesson towards winning and becoming successful. We just need to focus on how we can improve on this season.

Losing the league was gut-wrenching. It was so painful. But I want to feel that pain again as it means we will be challenging year after year. If we are consistently challenging for titles, then our time will come. The biggest clubs in the world all experience failure.

This is the worst the Hearts team will be. We will only get better as we improve our squad year on year. Hearts winning the Scottish Premiership is inevitable.

Take defeat with grace. Use it to fuel our future title battles. We are disruptors of Scottish football. We've changed Scottish football. Old firm split. Next step, win the league. Believe. HHGH ❤️

Two key "handball" penalties have got me thinking about how utterly bonkers the current handball rule is.

 The penalty at Fir Park against Nicholson of Motherwell in the dying seconds of Wednesday's match against Celtic made national and international headlines. The penalty awarded against Kyziridis of Hearts at the end of the first half of Saturday's title decider at Celtic Park attracted next to no comment. Does anyone seriously argue that either player handled the ball deliberately?

 The handball offence, from the first codification of association football rules in 1863 until 2019, was expressed simply: it was handball if a player deliberately touched the ball with their hand or arm. Accidental contact was not an offence. Deliberate use of the hand or arm was.

 Referees were expected to apply common sense. Was the arm moving towards the ball? Was the player's hand in a position designed to intercept it? Did the contact appear accidental? Did the ball strike a player's arm from close range with no time to react? These were questions that referees were perfectly well placed to answer.

Then in 2019 came the addition of "unnaturally bigger" into the definition. It became handball if a player

 "touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger. A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player's body movement for that specific situation. By having their hand/arm in such a position, the player takes a risk of their hand/arm being hit by the ball and being penalised."

That new paragraph — and the chaos it has produced — is what football now has to live with.

 The deliberate handball rule served football well for 156 years. The fix is simple: go back to it.

In the SPFL Premiership, there has been only 1 notable instance where a referee was called to the pitchside monitor and stubbornly stuck with their original on-field decision.

This extremely rare occurrence happened just recently in May 2026:

The Incident: During a match involving Heart of Midlothian, referee Steven McLean was sent to the screen by the VAR room to review a trip on Hearts player Alexandros Kyziridis inside the box.
The Outcome: Despite the VAR recommending a penalty review, McLean looked at the footage and stuck with his original on-field call of no penalty, sparking widespread surprise and debate across Scottish football pundits

Did that game end the same way, goal, pitch invasion and didn’t even bother to restart the match?

Why haven’t the SFA made a statement backing up the SPFL’s confirmation that Saturday’s match was not abandoned and ended properly.

That is two games where the officials have not ended the match properly. Can’t end a match that has not restarted after a goal. Is what is in the rules of football.

Also can anyone remember a time when Celtic have released a statement apologising for their fans and praising another team?

With our 80 points, guess how many times in the last 20 years we would win the title?

Once

This has gone from a tiny wee sub to trending basically overnight and pretty much every post now has a bunch of laughy crying emojis from 13 year olds. Plenty of other team subs just blanket ban supporters of rival teams and I think we need to do the same

Copied from another site. Good read.

The SFA’s Blind Spot for Celtic Is Destroying Scottish Football

For generations, Scottish football was defined by passion, tribalism, and—most importantly—a sense that the rules applied equally to all. That last pillar is gone. And the Scottish Football Association (SFA) is the one holding the wrecking ball.

This past season, and for several before it, a mounting pile of circumstantial evidence suggests the SFA has abandoned any pretense of neutrality. Whether through ignored rules, bent procedures, or deafening silence on scandals that would have sunk any other club, the governing body has consistently acted—or failed to act—in ways that benefit Celtic FC. The result? A dying league, a demoralised youth system, and a reputation for fairness that has been chiseled away beyond repair.

In 2012, Rangers were thrown to the wolves over tax issues. The SFA and SPFL didn’t just punish the club—they forced rival clubs to vote on whether Rangers should be expelled from the top flight. They were demoted to the lowest tier, effectively starting again from scratch. That decision sent a message: no club is above the rules. Let it be known that the debt was greatly exaggerated and those turning the screws were caught, but nothing done about them.

Now contrast that with Celtic. For decades, systematic child abuse occurred within Celtic’s youth system and boys’ clubs operating under their banner. This season alone, Celtic settled with multiple victims, effectively admitting that they knowingly employed perpetrators and turned a blind eye. These were not historical administrative errors. These were crimes. And the SFA? Silence. Not a single charge of bringing the game into disrepute. No points deduction. No demand for answers. No relegation. No stripping of titles from that era. The SFA has enough power and leverage to apply some rules and at least address this, but they didn’t. No effort whatsoever.

If the SFA can bankrupt Rangers for financial mismanagement, why can it not even speak about institutional abuse? The only difference is the name on the jersey.

Next.

Statistics can be misleading. But when a team goes more than 90 consecutive league matches without a single red card, in a contact sport like Scottish football, eyebrows must be raised. That streak ended this season—coincidentally, only after it was publicly pointed out by analysts and former officials. For years, cynical fouls, tactical pulls, and last-man challenges somehow never met the threshold for a sending-off. The SFA’s referee compliance department saw nothing. No pattern. No concern. Just a remarkable, league-defying run of discipline that no other club in Europe could match.

Then there’s the clock.

Watch any Celtic match deep into stoppage time. The fourth official’s board goes up for four minutes. Celtic trail. Somehow, the game stretches to six, seven, or eight minutes. And repeatedly—almost predictably—Celtic score a last-minute equaliser or winner. These aren’t anomalies anymore; they are a feature. Opposing managers have complained only to be fined for dissent. The SFA’s own data on added time inconsistencies has never been published. Fans of every other club see it. The SFA pretends it doesn’t.

Then the Split.

The post-split fixture system was meant to be fair and has always been. Top six, everyone plays each other once, home and away balanced across the season. So why, this season, did Celtic get their home game against league leaders Hearts as the final match, almost as if they knew they could make it down to the wire? At home. Traditional rotation was ignored. Celtic’s advantage was preserved. Hearts were forced to play at Celtic Park in a decisive match, while their own home fixture against Celtic had already passed. The SFA’s own committee signed it off. No other top club would have received that luxury.

Referee John Beaton was placed under extraordinary pressure midweek to award Celtic a last-minute penalty. Replays showed minimal contact, and the decision was widely criticised by media and former footballers alike. The narrative was already written: Celtic needed a penalty, and Beaton delivered.

Then came today’s match. Another penalty for Celtic. Another controversy. This time, the attacking player was clearly offside in the build-up and eventually scored. VAR checked. No overturn. No Scottish team outside the Old Firm would have been given that decision. The silence from the SFA’s referee department was, by now, predictable.

Here is the most damning recent incident. Before the final whistle home fans invaded the pitch and assaulted Hearts players. Under SPFL and SFA rules, that constitutes an abandonment scenario. The rulebook states that if a match is abandoned due to crowd trouble before full time, the offending club forfeits the match 3-0. That rule has been enforced against other clubs.

This time? Silence. There’ll be no 3-0 awarded to Hearts. No points deduction. No public rebuke. The SFA will simply look away.

Scottish football is dying. Attendances outside the top two are flat or falling. Sponsors are harder to attract. And crucially, young Scottish players are turning away from the professional game. Why wouldn’t they? They see a system where fairness is a joke. They see that playing for any club outside Celtic means playing against not just eleven men, but against a governing body that bends rules, ignores offences, and protects the brand at all costs. Integrity is not a reputation—it is the currency of sport. The SFA has spent it all.

The result is a generation of Scottish youth who look at English academies, European pathways, or even rugby and other sports. They don’t believe Scottish football is a meritocracy anymore. And they are right.

The rest of the league’s members cannot wait any longer. Silence is complicity. Clubs must do three things immediately:

- Lawyer up. A collective legal challenge to the SFA’s governance, citing breach of duty to promote and regulate football fairly under Scottish law and UEFA statutes.
- Boycott the league structure unless an independent review is launched into fixture manipulation, refereeing patterns, and disciplinary inconsistency. No matches until the SFA agrees to binding reforms.
- Demand past wrongs be made right. That includes the SFA finally addressing Celtic’s historical child abuse scandal not as a criminal matter (which is for the courts) but as a disrepute matter under its own Articles of Association. At minimum, Celtic should be stripped of trophies from the abusive era and relegated to the bottom tier to rebuild—just as Rangers were for financial sins.

The SFA was created to promote Scottish football. Instead, it has protected one club while letting the foundations rot. If they will not act, the clubs must. Otherwise, in ten years, there will be no Scottish football left to save.