Twenty-eight million reasons why Romanov's vision doesn't add up

IF £28 million doesn't sound a lot when you say it quickly, it assumes the scale of a mountain when set beside Hearts' annual turnover.

To bring some perspective to the seriousness of the figures announced by the Tynecastle club the other day, they equate, on a pro rata basis, to Celtic declaring liabilities of around £200 million.

Given their progress to the last 16 of the Champions League this season, the Parkhead club's turnover for the current year seems likely to come out at about £70 million, seven times that of Hearts.

Were chairman Brian Quinn and his directors to incur a deficit of almost three times that amount - as Vladimir Romanov and his fellow executives have - they would be, at best, charged by their fans with unforgivable recklessness. It is, however, more likely that they would be, metaphorically speaking, tarred and feathered as a prelude to compulsory "retirement".

Put in these terms, even a layman does not need a professional financial analyst to tell him the enormity of Hearts' difficulties. Nor does he require expert guidance to know that the proposed methods by which the club may trade their way out of the problem are largely unconvincing.

It is not difficult to see that arresting the rate of the annual losses could be easily achieved, simply through the agency of reducing staff and, as a consequence, slashing a wage bill that presently stands at a ludicrous 100 per cent of turnover. But that would not have an impact on the level of debt.

There is a possibility that they could make at least a dent in the latter by selling three or four, or even more, players for a total of around, say, £8m. But the number of authentically desirable assets at Tynecastle has been dwindling seemingly by the month.

With Steven Pressley, Paul Hartley, Andy Webster and Rudi Skacel all gone, the most valuable player left on the books is Craig Gordon. By confining him to the subs' bench, Hearts are at risk of diminishing his notional transfer fee.

While there remains little doubt that they could find a buyer if one is sought - they have already, of course, rejected a £4m offer from Fulham - there is no sense of a clamour for the services of the Scotland goalkeeper from England, the likeliest destination and the home of the biggest spenders.

Nor is it likely, if Gordon's inactivity continues, that Hearts could expect the £5m-plus that has been regularly touted. There is invariably a hint of desperation about clubs looking to buy in January that becomes significantly less applicable in the summer. On that basis, there seems no reason why Fulham, or anyone else, should be willing to pay more than their original bid at a time of year when their options may be more numerous.

The optimism of Romanov and his acolytes over Hearts' irresistible march towards the new Jerusalem seems to be predicated on increasing revenue through participation in European football and growing attendances at a more capacious, re-developed stadium.

Kipling might have called these - rather than triumph and disaster - "two imposters", as there is no guarantee of qualification for Europe in any given year and disaffected supporters are already talking of refusing to renew their season tickets.

As for the proposed makeover of Tynecastle, the mystery deepens. The prima facie evidence of a club with Hearts' arrears suggests that the ambition to purchase adjacent land and build a new, 12,000-capacity main stand appears so fanciful as to be beyond achievement.

Even the reported £20 million cost of the project - a high enough figure - appears to be quite unrealistic. This is an exercise, from buying the land - Edinburgh city council may insist on a purchase price of £6.5m - through demolition of the present stand and site clearance to construction of the new edifice, from which Hearts would be unlikely to get any change out of £40m.

It should be emphasised that the proposed new main stand will be more than twice the size of the Wheatfield Stand. In addition, it will require to be more comprehensively appointed than all of the other stands in the stadium, including offices, dressing-rooms and hospitality areas.

All of this will make it hugely expensive, leading to the obvious question of where Hearts will find the money. Hearts, on their present course of annual losses and mounting liabilities, appear to be in no position to be planning a breathtaking new football cathedral in Gorgie.

Taken from the Scotsman