Pressley has union backing as Hearts maintain silence

STEVEN Pressley, the deposed Hearts captain, is receiving the full backing of the players' union in his fight to prove he has been mistreated by the club. Fraser Wishart, the Secretary of the Scottish Professional Footballers Association (SPFA), said that backing would be given regardless of whether the dispute were dealt with by the footballing authorities or became a matter for the courts.

Hearts have yet to explain why Pressley was told not to bother attending training on Friday and was informed he would not be required for the following day's game at St Mirren. After the 2-2 draw at Love Street, Valdas Ivanauskas, the head coach, said more would be revealed on "Sunday or Monday". Moments later, a spokesman for the club said he was "99 per cent certain" that no statement was planned for either day.

As is the case with any club, Hearts have the right to omit any player from their team. By suspending Pressley indefinitely, however, they have left themselves open to a charge of constructive dismissal.

Their obvious counter to such a charge would be to claim that, by making a public criticism several weeks ago of the way the club was being run, Pressley had committed a disciplinary offence. Whether they take such a course, however, remains open to question, as do many aspects of the affair.

Perhaps the most perplexing question is why, after asking to be left out of one match and then being put on the bench for the next, Pressley was then reinstated for Hearts' league game at Inverness ten days ago if the intention all along was to force him out of the first team and possibly the club. Another equally baffling aspect of the affair is why Vladimir Romanov, Hearts' majority shareholder, should have gone out of his way on the eve of the Caley Thistle game to praise Pressley to fans and call him "the cement of the club".

And it is not only the media and the general public who are being left in the dark. At mid-afternoon on Friday, The Scotsman phoned the PR department at Tynecastle to ask if the club would say why Pressley had not trained or travelled with the first-team squad and would not play against St Mirren. It was the first they had heard of the matter.

The omission of Pressley was news to the players too. Just before training on Friday, Michal Pospisil spoke enthusiastically of the captain's return to the team against Inverness, and gave no indication he thought the axe was about to fall.

And, speaking on Saturday after the match at Love Street, Edgaras Jankauskas confirmed the players had been left in the dark. "We have no information about what has happened," the striker said.

Jankauskas, who has himself not always seen eye to eye with Romanov, went on to refer to Pressley as the captain in the present tense, and said he agreed with the sentiments expressed by the centre-back in his statement at Riccarton. "He's the team captain and he's been always respected," Jankauskas said. "I think he was [speaking on my behalf], because he said, if I remember, we need stability. The main problem is we have no stability."

When Pressley said he was "not mentally attuned" for the match at Falkirk, it was as a result of his belief that one or more club executives had tried to persuade the Lithuanian players to undermine his authority in the dressing-room. Jankauskas said that none of his compatriots had indulged in such a plot.

"I can assure you, none of the Lithuanians were involved in any plot or similar word. They are quite young players and I don't think they would even understand what goes on. We are all doing the same job, whether we are black or white, whether we are born in Senegal or France or Lithuania.

"There's not any plot and none of the Lithuanians are against the Scottish. We have a good relationship with Steven. Maybe of course differences of opinion can happen when you are together every day on the training pitch, but I can consider him as my friend."

Taken from the Scotsman