Kelty Hearts, and the Ownership Model That Actually Works

Jordan Gardner did not take over Kelty Hearts because he believes a lower-league club in Scotland is a shortcut to global relevance.

He did it because he believes the opposite is true.

In a football economy increasingly defined by overspending, short-term panic, and ownership groups chasing upside that rarely arrives, Gardner’s pitch is built around a quieter idea: some clubs still offer a model that can make sense. Not because they are glamorous, but because they are structurally sound. Not because they promise instant promotion, but because they allow long-term building without inheriting decades of financial baggage.

Gardner, through Hearts Football, LLC, recently led a group to acquire an 80% stake in Kelty Hearts, a club currently battling at the bottom of Scottish League One. In an appearance on SDH AM with Jon Nelson, he laid out a thesis that matters beyond one club. It is a framework for sustainable lower-league ownership, grounded in governance, infrastructure, and patience rather than spectacle.

This is not a story about a savior. It is a story about a builder.

Why Scotland Made Sense

Gardner’s entry point was not romance. It was math.

He has spent years consulting in the global football space, including work in Scotland, and what stood out to him was that many clubs there were, in his words, “well run, financially sustainable.” Scotland is smaller than England, and the scale is different, but the ecosystem carries some of the same characteristics that once made English lower-league clubs attractive before valuations exploded.

Gardner’s core question was simple: what does a football investment model look like when it is not designed to lose money forever?

“Most of the models don’t work,” he said. “They’re heavy loss makers. You’re chasing promotions, you’re chasing selling players.”

So instead of targeting clubs built on deficit spending and hope, he looked down the pyramid for organizations where the cost base was lower, liabilities were manageable, and sustainability was possible.

Some of those clubs, he noted, were break-even or even profitable, often because of part-time structures, low overhead, or occasional cup-driven revenue spikes. The point was not that these clubs were rich. The point was that they were not trapped.

Why Kelty Was the Opportunity

Kelty Hearts appealed to Gardner because it offered something rare in modern football: a club with upside and relatively few inherited problems.

“There are a lot of clubs out there you can buy that are distressed,” he said. “But you’re inheriting millions and millions of dollars in liabilities… long-term contracts… issues with your stadium. This club had none of that.”

Kelty is not a sleeping giant with a massive global fan base. It is a small community club with a clear ceiling. Gardner is direct about that.

But it is also a club that has already shown momentum. Kelty climbed rapidly through the Scottish system, earning three promotions from the sixth tier up to League One, where it has now spent multiple seasons.

Gardner’s bet is not that Kelty will become something it is not. His bet is that Kelty can become a version of itself that is better run, better structured, and positioned for sustainable progress.

“We think we can take this club to the next level,” he said, whether that means reaching the Scottish Championship or becoming “the best financially sustainable, well run part-time club in the country.”

That framing matters. The plan is not built around fantasy. It is built around structure.

The Deal Structure That Changes the Risk

One of the most significant elements of this takeover is not on the pitch. It is in the transaction itself.

Because Kelty Hearts has community ownership roots, Gardner explained that the acquisition capital is not simply paid out to an outgoing owner.

“All the money that we bought the club for goes into the club as growth capital,” he said.

That is not how most football takeovers work. Often, a buyer’s money leaves the ecosystem immediately, and the club still needs fresh capital just to survive.

In Kelty’s case, Gardner says the structure creates runway. The investment is committed growth funding over a period of years, giving the club room to improve infrastructure rather than simply plugging holes.

From a risk perspective, he described it as “very low,” because the capital is already earmarked for development.

The real challenge becomes allocation.

Infrastructure First, Not Panic Spending

Gardner’s clearest warning is aimed at a familiar ownership impulse: spend immediately on the squad, chase results, hope the table solves everything else.

“I think a lot of people… just dump all that money into the first team squad,” he said. “We got to win games.”

Kelty’s approach, he insists, will be different.

For Gardner, the opportunity is holistic. Clubs at this level often lack sophisticated staffing, modern recruitment processes, performance infrastructure, and long-term player development pathways. They are under-resourced, not just under-talented.

So the plan is broader: investment in infrastructure, academy development, potential women’s programming, player performance, and modern operational systems.

“Bring in data,” he noted, something Kelty “hasn’t used before.”

The competitive advantage, in his view, is not outspending opponents. It is out-functioning them.

Patience Is the Only Real Advantage

Gardner returns repeatedly to the idea that football ownership cannot be treated like a quarterly business.

It takes years to change culture. Years to build recruitment pipelines. Years for academy investments to produce sellable players.

In Denmark, he said, it took three full seasons before meaningful ROI emerged through player sales. It took three to four seasons before academy outputs became financially real.

“No one should ever go into this looking for dividends,” he said. “That’s not really how this should work.”

The payoff, if it comes, comes later: through promotion, stability, and eventual exit value when a larger group sees a well-run club ready for the next step.

“This is a five to six to seven year project,” Gardner said plainly.

In a sport obsessed with immediate judgment, that may be the hardest discipline of all.

Ownership Alignment Is Part of the Sporting Model

Gardner also emphasized that the boardroom is not separate from the football plan. It is part of it.

He has built his investor group intentionally around people with operational understanding, not just capital.

He is wary of “random folks” brought in simply to raise money, because misalignment at the ownership level creates governance instability that filters downward.

“If your ownership… are fighting with each other… you’re gonna have a lot of trouble having success,” he said.

For Gardner, cohesion is a competitive asset.

The Reality Check: Kelty’s Fight Right Now

Kelty Hearts is not taking over from a position of comfort. The club is at the bottom of League One, already digging out of a deep early-season hole.

Gardner acknowledges the difficulty of turning a roster midseason. Winter windows do not offer magical solutions. Players are under contract. Options are limited.

Relegation is possible.

But Gardner’s framing is instructive: relegation is not merely misfortune. It is diagnosis.

“Relegation tells you did something wrong,” he said. “There’s no way around it.”

And sometimes, he argued, that hard truth becomes the forcing mechanism that allows real institutional change.

The larger project remains the same: build infrastructure, modernize operations, create sustainability, and give Kelty a platform that lasts longer than any single window.

This is the ownership model Gardner believes works.

Not because it guarantees success.

Because it is designed to survive long enough to earn it.

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SDH will keep following the builders and the long-horizon plans that shape clubs through structure, not shortcuts.