Closure in Hearts’ saga is further away

In the beginning, there seemed something intriguing, even exciting, about Vladimir Romanov. Here was this self-made Lithuanian businessman, albeit shrouded in mystery, who arrived in Scotland, volubly touting for a football club. Looking back, this may be the aspect to recall most clearly: Romanov wanted Hearts for a business reason and no other.

Then came Romanov's first injection of cash: £800,000 up front for shares, and subsequent outlays which eventually reached a total of £2.2m for an 80% controlling stake. In the current financial labyrinth of Hearts, these monies, at least, can be traced. Romanov, so far as most of us know, handed over money to Chris Robinson and others in order to establish his Gorgie empire.

Then came the so-called "saving of Tynecastle", a phrase whose usage these days may require a best-before date. It was Romanov, and no other, who guaranteed victory in Hearts' battle to remain at their historic site, and such a battle provoked the first stirrings of love for Romanov in the Gorgie breast. He truly took on saviour status among many Hearts fans, who sang his name lustily in operatic arias.

Then came the night of May 3 this year, when Hearts, in beating Aberdeen at a bulging Tynecastle, guaranteed themselves a tilt at the Champions League. I was there that night and it may prove to be the high watermark of Romanov's relationship with Hearts. There was no doubting the authenticity of his joy and satisfaction at the club's achievement as he pumped his fists, danced on the pitch, and embraced legions of beery supporters. That May evening, you even had a tingling sensation that perhaps Hearts and Romanov may prove a match made in heaven.

All of these episodes seem an age away now. Under Romanov, Hearts are in turmoil, a club in political and professional disintegration. We should now be spared those beseeching Hearts voices, blinded to the last, who still insist: "But we've won the cup and we're still actually no' that bad . . . you media guys are at it again." The truth is, Hearts are in peril and, as a proud institution of Scottish life, it may be that the club has to be rescued from Romanov's clutches.

The days are also long gone when we can put some of this alleged crisis down to mere cultural misunderstanding. In any language, in any culture, what Romanov is doing at Hearts is no way to run a football club. If anyone requires proof this is not just a stiff-necked Scottish presbyterian outlook, then speak to people in Lithuania, who have long insisted Romanov's meddling at FBK Kaunas also has degenerative effects. Romanov, as likeable as he is, remains an autocratic loose cannon with a merciless side to his character. It is through Romanov's antics that the current treatment of Steven Pressley is being doled out. Pressley, no more and no less, is being persecuted by his club for having the temerity to make a public plea for sanity at Tynecastle.

We are talking here about a player whom Hearts historians will rank as one of the finest captains - amid an illustrious rollcall - in the club's annals. The treatment of Pressley is disgraceful and there is no-one accountable for it but Romanov.

This Hearts saga, with each passing week, becomes a bigger headache for both the SFA and the SPL. In the age of foreign investment in British football, it is impossible to apply watertight checks on the various figures who lurk in the shadows of the game. Yet both the SFA and the SPL have a moral remit to safeguard and cherish Scottish football, which leaves the two bodies directly embroiled in this Hearts business. The least that David Taylor and Lex Gold, the two bodies' corporate heads, should be doing is taking legal advice on making an intervention if the Hearts case enters a life-threatening scenario.

Many and varied are some of the weird theories you come across regarding Romanov's ultimate motives at Hearts. Some of them, frankly, are too complex to explore in a space such as this, and in any case, these are no longer of prime importance.

It is hard to fathom where closure will come for Hearts in the current saga. There appears to be only two possible scenarios, yet neither seems likely. The first is that Romanov will suddenly wake up tomorrow, change his ways, and appoint a good Hearts coach who will be allowed to get on with his job. Yet can a leopard change its spots?

Alternatively, Romanov will suddenly decide to get out of Hearts and sell up, to someone who can restore belief and harmony to the club. Yet this, too, seems unlikely. The Lithuanian, from all evidence, doesn't want to go anywhere. Indeed, he is in the process, on the back of his Hearts oxygen of publicity, of opening a branch of his Ukio bank in Edinburgh.

It may be that, if football cannot heal this Hearts crisis, then a banking failure will. But right now, under Romanov, Hearts' future is utterly gloomy.

Taken from the Herald