Hibs braced for 'big summer' after Black Knight tie-up

Shareholders voted to back the minority investment at last week's AGM at Easter Road, with the Texan tycoon set to pump money into the club on top of the finances supplied by the Gordon family, who remain majority shareholders. 

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Speaking at the AGM, Kensell - who, along with Ian Gordon, was involved in weeks of talks with the Scottish FA about the investment - spoke about what the partnership means for Hibs. 

“In its infancy, we were discussing Scottish football in general, we were discussing facilities, European group-stage football, and the fact that Aberdeen and Hearts have recently secured group-stage football and how important and lucrative that is. There were no specifics around what we would need," Kensell explained. 

"There were discussions with multiple suitors, but some wanted full control and ownership which wouldn’t be appropriate, or allowed in Scottish football because of Article 13. So that was never on the table, never discussed. As soon as we understood what the priority was for those suitors, it was off the table."

An initial £6 million investment will be coming Hibs' way with Foley's signature on the cheque but Kensell doesn't envisage a similar situation to the agreement Hearts have with benefactor James Anderson. 

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"Hearts have their own model and I have no issues with their model whatsoever, every club does things differently. This is our way of doing it with the support and investment of the Gordon family and now the support, investment and partnership of the Black Knight football group. Other clubs do things the way they want to do things, and we will do what we want to do, but we still have to remain competitive in an unbelievably competitive league," he said. 

Foley is the owner of Bournemouth, and has a minority stake in French Ligue 1 side Lorient, with a view to increasing that to full ownership. He recently acquired a licence for an Auckland-based team to compete in Australia's A-League, and has been linked with clubs in Belgium and the Netherlands. Kensell was keen to stress that supporters have no reason to worry about Hibs becoming a 'feeder club' for the Cherries.

"The multi-club network will allow us to trade and understand what other clubs are doing within the network and potentially get players either on loan or from within the network and utilise other recruitment strategies and best practices," he continued.

"We’re not a feeder club. We’re part of a network. We’ve never used that terminology with Bill and there has been no such discussion about Bournemouth feeding anyone. It’s a collaborative relationship that we will both benefit from, and other clubs within the network will benefit from it too. But, if we don’t believe that it benefits Hibs specifically, we won’t do it. And we’ll look outside of that network for the way forward, on the pitch or off the pitch. Simple as that.

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“We've ratified a significant investment into the football club; now it’s about how we work through that – and we’ve already done a lot of work behind the scenes and how we’ll work in partnership. We’ve got a big summer ahead of us. We have players out of contract. We know what our ambitions are in terms of European football and going deep into the cup competitions; that hasn’t changed since the Black Knight investment.

“But there haven’t been any further discussions. We have individuals who are being brought onto the board for our next board meeting, and they’ll be pushing that agenda forward. They want us to be as successful as we want to be, as quickly as possible. We have a lot of work to do to try to get into a position that gives us the opportunity to get into the European group stages next season.  That’s what we have to focus on at the moment. It is a game changer. Aberdeen and Hearts have been the beneficiaries of that game change and they deserved it. We want to be part of that as well."

Hibs are the first Scottish club to formally join a multi-club network - another first for a club that has had numerous groundbreaking moments over the years. But the partnership was never about trailblazing, Kensell insists.

“Scotland is one of the last leagues to have an element of multi-club ownership. But we’re not doing it for that reason. I think it’s pioneering, definitely. I think it’s game-changing and groundbreaking for Scottish football. I think it is in keeping with what we do as a football club.

"But we didn’t do it to be the first, we did it because we believe it makes sense and we think it can potentially give us the edge that we believe our strategy needs. We just happen to be the first club to do it. We’re proud of that and we want to continue being trailblazers – for the right reasons.

“As long as it benefits the fans and the football club, and moves us forward, we’ll be unified in belief that it’s the right thing to do."