Tony Bloom has not revised his forecast. Speaking to Sky Sports before Hearts return to Celtic Park on Sunday, the Brighton chairman repeated that he would be "really disappointed" if the Tynecastle club have not won the Scottish Premiership inside ten years. He said it a year ago, when it sounded like the sort of thing a new investor says. He is still saying it now, after the most painful possible evidence that it might be true.
Eleven minutes that nearly changed Scottish football
Bloom completed a near £10m investment in Hearts last summer with a stated aim of disrupting the pattern of domination in Scottish football. At the first time of asking, the club that has not won a top-flight title since 1960 led the table from September and arrived on the final day with the championship in reach. Celtic came from a goal down to win and take the title in the closing minutes.
"The way it ended, in difficult circumstances from a Hearts point of view, is exceptionally disappointing for the club and for me as well," Bloom said. "At the end of the day, we've got to accept what's happened, if not be happy about how things ended."
A summer that stripped the squad, then rebuilt it
What followed was close to a dismantling. Head coach Derek McInnes went to Rangers, and so did captain Lawrence Shankland and midfielder Cammy Devlin. Alexandros Kyziridis and Alexander Schwolow also left. Hearts are the only club in Scotland with access to Bloom's Jamestown Analytics network, and they used it to appoint Wouter Vrancken and to bring in replacements including Calvin Miller, Malachi Fagan-Walcott and Beau Reus.
Vrancken arrived more or less as pre-season began, which Bloom acknowledged made the start difficult. Hearts lost their Champions League and Europa League qualifiers and then their Premiership opener to Aberdeen. They are now in the Conference League, in the League Cup semi-finals and third in the table, three points behind Rangers and five behind Celtic.
The track record that makes people listen
The reason Bloom's timeline is taken seriously has little to do with Scotland. Brighton, where he is chairman and where Jamestown's methods are also used, climbed from League One to consecutive top-half Premier League finishes and European football. At Union Saint-Gilloise, where he became majority shareholder eight years ago, the same data-led approach produced a Belgian Cup and then a first top-flight title in 90 years. Como have gone from the lower reaches of Italian football to a fourth-place finish in Serie A.
No non-Old Firm side has won the Scottish top flight since 1985. Hearts came within eleven minutes of ending that last May, and the squad that nearly did it has largely been replaced. Sunday afternoon at Celtic Park will not settle the question, but it will say something about whether the rebuilt version is any further from the answer than the one that came so close.
Club business context: Tony Bloom invested close to £10m in Heart of Midlothian in summer 2025 and is chairman of Brighton and majority shareholder at Union Saint-Gilloise. Hearts are the only Scottish club with access to his Jamestown Analytics network. They last won the league title in 1960; no club outside Celtic and Rangers has won it since 1985. Celtic v Hearts, Celtic Park, Sunday 18 October 2026, 15:00 BST.
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