Show the money Mr Munro..

SCEPTICAL Hearts fans have urged the leader of an Edinburgh consortium trying to buy out Vladimir Romanov to put his money where his mouth is and prove he has the funds required.

The Evening News first revealed last week that Capital businessman Pat Munro was spearheading a group, with the help of foreign investment, that was looking to put together a package to gain a controlling interest in the Jambos.

Key to the plans, should they succeed, would be installing a well-known figure in the Tynecastle hot-seat. There is little doubt that the prospect of having a manager in place for a prolonged period of time would appeal to the Hearts support, particularly one who has full autonomy over team selection matters.

And today Derek Watson, secretary of the Hearts Supporters' Trust, urged Munro to prove he has the financial clout to attempt a buy-out.

"I don't think anybody is taking this proposal terribly seriously," said Watson.

"The main reason is that everybody saw only a few years ago when Save Our Hearts were trying desperately to raise money to buy shares we only managed to get around £2.6m and that's a long way short of what we are talking about now. At that time no money was coming forward and the club was in what you could properly term a crisis, yet now it's probably nothing more than a bad patch.

"So to get anybody to come forward with the sort of money that would be needed now seems to be very much pie in the sky to me.

"Until we see the money on the table I don't think we can believe there's anything in it. We need proof."

It's the second time that Munro has attempted to gain a controlling interest in Hearts having been at the centre of a failed bid in January last year.

Then, Romanov, who was seen as a saviour by many people desperate for the removal of former chief executive Chris Robinson, was on the verge of acquiring the club and the emergence of a rival bid was viewed as an unwelcome distraction.

Munro, along with associate Fred Wood, wanted to keep Hearts in Scottish hands and proposed a purchase and lease back for Tynecastle which would have kept the club in Gorgie at a time when it was feared that a move to the Murrayfield stadium was imminent.

A whopping £4m transfer budget for then-boss John Robertson was also mooted yet Munro and his associates never showed they had the necessary funds to underpin their ambitious proposals.

At the time Wood said: "I believe you need a minimum of £30m to run Hearts properly and in the next two or three weeks we hope to be in a position to contribute that."

Yet, despite serious concerns over the bid, Watson insisted he and his fellow Hearts supporters would happily listen to what the consortium had to say if they could prove they have the finances this time round and were serious about a deal.

"There's absolutely no harm in listening to a proposal if it can be proved that it's legitimate," said Watson.

"And who knows, if the money was there to be seen, perhaps Mr Romanov would listen to it as well.But until the time that we can see that a lot more clearly it's no more than speculation. If they want to be taken seriously they have to show the fans they have the funds."

And Watson, whose Supporters' Trust were one of four fans' groups to meet with Hearts on Monday night to demand a meeting with Romanov, insisted that the number one preference for the majority of fans is still to find a way to work with Lithuanian-based Romanov.

It's only in the past few weeks, and in particular in the wake of the statement made to the media by club captain Steven Pressley that there was "significant unrest" in the dressing room at the direction the club was moving, that most fans have begun to question Romanov's methods.

Sunday's clash with Rangers saw an angry protest from around 200 fans outside the stadium after the game while inside the ground numerous banners showed the supporters' frustrations.

But Watson remains confident that, if the banker agrees to sit down talks and listens to the fans' grievances, there's no reason why he can't go on and achieve his stated ambition of establishing the club as the dominant footballing force in this country.

"At the moment I can safely say that most fans would rather find a way to move the club forward with Mr Romanov rather than try to find an alternative," he said.

"At the end of the day a meeting with Romanov is what we really want. The lines of communication between the fans' groups and the club's management (Campbell Ogilvie and David Southern) have been excellent in the past and they now know that we want a meeting wit Mr Romanov.

"We know that it isn't always straightforward as he's often not in the country but I think it's important we sit down and talk about what has been going on."

Taken from the Scotsman