OSAMA BIN LADEN COULD BUY OUT A SCOTTISH CLUB AND OUR RULING BODIES WOULDN'T BAT AN EYELID

SCOTTISH football is in damn good health. That would be the bold reply if you asked any of the bungling bureaucrats (don't you just love that description) within the SFA, SFL or SPL.

The balls are still rolling and fans are still paying to watch so everything must be working just fine. Right? Wrong you dullards.

The game is in a dreadful mess. Bottom line? It is still on the brink of bankruptcy and awash with maniacs who have no idea how to treat people with respect.

Managers are chucked out on to the pavements by club owners, who often behave with the same lack of respect as a gang of hoodies tossing their Big Mac or pizza boxes from the windows of their stolen cars.

And how do we stop that when just about anyone can roll up with asuitcase full of cash and buy a club?

No one asks any questions of the strangers, who could be financed through worldwide distribution of the best Columbian marching powder.

"Hey, Miquel. How can we launder another couple of million?"

"I've told you Carlos. Buy a soccer team in Scotland. They are so dumb and desperate for money they don't ask questions."

Sounds ridiculous but the truth is we don't have any kind of proper screening programme in this country. We have three governing bodies yet not one of them can be bothered running rigorous checks on anyone who wants to own a club.

That's why the world's most wanted man, Osama Bin Laden, could fund a buy-out of any club in Scotland and no one would know. Worse still, our administrators wouldn't know where to start with background checks even if they did wish to find out a little about buyers.

This also is why not a single one of them has any right now to criticise or complain about what is happening at Hearts, who have become a joke under the Romanov regime.

Actually that isn't true. What is being done to Hearts isn't funny. If anything it is desperately sad.

The club are in the grip of a man who brooks no opposition to his law. This is a Russian who, one way or another, will silence dissidents and if the Scottish Professional Footballers' Association think they will bring him to heel then all those years heading footballs have taken a damaging toll.

SPFA secretary Fraser Wishart, a thoroughly decent and honourable man, issued a statement on Saturday night condemning the treatment of Steven Pressley and expressing concern about the club's "unorthodox managerial and employment practices".

It sounded good but Vladimir Romanov might just have smirked when he heard it. This successful banker is working to an agenda which I cannot understand and his methods and expectations of others continue to bewilder. He claims to have lofty ambitions for Hearts yet he himself seems to be the main cause of the almost constant disruption and change.

Footballers and coaches are not machines and will falter and malfunction on a fairly regular basis but Romanov appears to make no allowances for the human condition. He seeks perfection in those around him yet he is far from the perfect club owner.

There is no one to stand up to him, not one character within the SFA or SPL strong enough to knock on his door and demand answers. Like every other problem which has landed in their back yard it is ignored in the hope it will go away.

Our governing bodies are expert at doing and saying nothing in troubled times but why should they care when they can drive around in the flashy cars bought by the game's money until the day comes when they are able to retire on inflated pensions also funded by our game.

Not since the days of Ernie Walker and then Jim Farry have we had anyone with stature or genuine courage at the top and when I look at who we have as chief executive today I feel like weeping.

Of course, David Taylor would probably argue that the Scottish national side have regained pride but he doesn't deserve a scrap of praise for that. Any credit due should go to Walter Smith and the players but certainly not Taylor, who has done very little good for Scottish football so far as I can make out.

Long ago he and SFA president John McBeth, who also receives a salary, should have been demanding answers and explanations from Romanov while making it clear he would have to mend his ways. But what have they done to help? As usual, not a lot.

But then the game in general, and I include fans, has been sitting back watching and laughing as the farce is played out at Tynecastle when we should have been looking for ways of making life here a little tougher for Romanov.

It might be too late to do much about him now but at the very least we should be insisting articles of association be improved to make it harder for people to take control of clubs. Background checks must be made and there ought to be legal sanctions should owners fail to meet pre-agreed targets for their clubs.

Then again, we'd need to make sure everyone is happy to be a part of Scottish football, including Celtic who are still searching for ways into other, bigger leagues.

Their chief executive, Peter Lawwell, has been banging on about the need for Celtic to play in some kind of European super league when he and others able to influence should be trying to make the SPL a much stronger and more orderly environment.

It is simply not true that Scottish clubs can't be successful in Europe as, strangely enough, Celtic and Rangers are currently proving. Just think how much more they could do in foreign competition if they concentrated on making Scotland's top leagues fit and proper places for football.

Despite the continued presence of the Old Firm in Europe anyone who thinks our game isn't a shambles should just look again at Tynecastle.

Hearts are as much the victims of inept adminstrations as they are of the indifference of the game's two super powers even though they know they can't flourish if the league is unhealthy and chaotic.

Taken from the Daily Record