The deal allowed Hearts to tap into Bloom’s scouting system, which has already benefitted Brighton and Belgian club Union Saint-Gilloise and helped Hearts to mount an early challenge to Celtic at the top of Premiership this season.
“You could also say we’ve taken a decision to invest heavily on the squad to make sure that the Jamestown Analytics gets off the ground as quickly as possible,” McKinlay explained.
“Again, if we didn’t have the money to do that, which hopefully we do with Tony, we just wouldn’t do it. I’m very comfortable with the way we’ve spent our money.
“What we’ll do going forward is we’re expecting the whole player trading piece to get better and better and for that to be a big part of how we fund the club going forward.”
Meanwhile, McKinlay paid tribute to Budge and says the board have had discussions about how her time at the club should be remembered, with one shareholder asking if the main stand could be named in her honour.
“I wanted the AGM to be about Ann and that’s why we focused on the past more than the future in some ways,” he added. “And it was about Ann, which is great and richly deserved.
“So there’s been discussions with Ann on various things around the future, so I’m not in a position to say anything here and now, but we’ve done a few things for Ann, like her title and things like that, so we’ll just see how things progress.”
