Romanov master of getting right result

IAN JOHNSTON

VLADIMIR Romanov once researched his family history to see if he was a descendant of the Russian tsars, and on the wall of his office there is a spoof of a famous painting of Lenin standing alongside a figure which looks remarkably like the Lithuanian tycoon.

Today Romanov and his wife Svetlana live a life of luxury associated with the super-rich and entertain international statesmen like Viktor Yushchenko, recently elected as president of Ukraine, and the leaders of the Russian Orthodox church at his summer retreat in the Lithuanian resort of Nida.

But what could an eastern European millionaire moving in such exalted circles possibly want with an perennially under-achieving Scottish football club with debts of nearly £20 million?

And can he truly deliver on his promise to produce a team capable of regularly beating the Old Firm to become Scottish champions?

Romanov, 57, has claimed that achieving this goal over the next five years as owner of Hearts will enable the club to become a viable business in its own right.

But there is another reason, based on years of experience, why he thinks investing in a Scottish football club is a good idea.

Involvement in sport has proved a useful way of building goodwill and new business contacts both at home in Lithuania with FBK Kaunas, in neighbouring Belarus where he has sponsored MTZ-Ripo in Minsk, and now in Scotland with Hearts.

An office - expected to be followed by a branch - of the Lithuanian bank Romanov helped to establish is due to open in Edinburgh as part of a drive to attract investment from the British financial sector into eastern Europe. Already there have been talks with Scottish Widows about buying real estate there.

However Romanov’s involvement in Lithuanian football has proved controversial, with accusations from a senior figure in the game that he has developed a stranglehold on the game which virtually ensures Kaunas wins the league every year.

But success in any field, football more than most, can attract criticisms from rivals who feel hard done-by. And there is no doubt that Kaunas have established themselves as Lithuania’s top club.

Even the head coach of the leading contenders for the league title, FK Ekranas, backed Romanov to succeed at Hearts.

While many may regard football as a risky investment, key Romanov adviser Liutauras Varanavicius - installed on the new Hearts board along with Romanov's son Roman and spokesman Sergejus Fedotovas - spoke of sound reasons behind the purchase of a club they see as a sleeping giant.

"It’s quite a strange situation that Edinburgh has no major club with all the businesses behind it. Football is a lot of emotions, but if you look without emotions, it is a really good business case [to take over Hearts]," he said.

The decision to acquire a major stake in Hearts was a move that baffled some of Romanov’s staff. Varanavicius was one of those convinced it was a good idea but said "others still don’t understand why we are there". However, Varanvicius moved to reassure Hearts fans who fear Romanov could become disillusioned and pull the plug if the club fails to meet his expectations. "He is not a person who is leaving something unachieved. That is his really big feature. He’s never leaving."

But the business partnerships to be formed in Edinburgh are just as valuable, especially with Western businesses which are interested in finding a reliable guide to eastern Europe where huge profits are to be made. Last year’s top performing market was in Ukraine, with returns on investment up by 234 per cent.

Chris Butler, chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Lithuania, said there was little doubt that Romanov’s skills in this field were formidable.

"Sometimes foreign investors tend to under-estimate the toughness necessary to survive in this market, which the successful local groups have been through," said Butler, who hopes to persuade Romanov to sponsor the chamber’s annual Burns Night.

"Twenty years ago, effectively there was no private property. You had to accumulate starting capital, you needed agreements with the state.

"You had to be strong, you had to be someone with friends, you had to be able to influence people and having got those assets you had to work out how to manage it. People managed to get assets, people managed to get things for nothing.

"Because Romanov’s been around for 15 years he is obviously good at getting assets and managing them."

RITAS Vaiginas, a Lithuanian businessman who runs a company which sells construction materials and a property portfolio, has equal respect for Romanov’s acumen.

But Vaiginas is also president of the Vilnius County Football Federation and a leading Labour Party member who is tipped to get the government-appointed post of vice-sports minister in the next few weeks.

He is outraged by the domination of FBK Kaunas and claims Romanov is so powerful that he effectively "writes the plot of the championship".

Two Lithuanian clubs in the top league, Silute and Klaipeda Atlantis, are regarded as "daughter clubs" of Kaunas because their teams feature several on-loan Kaunas players.

"Romanov has protected and supported people who haven’t done anything good for Lithuanian football," Vaiginas claimed. "Romanov has created his own system in Lithuania against which no club can do anything.

"In the first league of football there are some five clubs under his wing.

"This means that Romanov writes the plot for the championship. This means the rest of the three clubs can never become champion and it’s always obvious the winner will be FBK Kaunas. This all leads to the degradation of football in Lithuania."

In addition to being employed by Romanov for his financial skills, Varanavicius has also been the president of the Lithuanian Football Federation for the past five years.

Vaiginas was unimpressed by his record in Lithuania and said this cast doubt on the claims that Hearts would become a new force in Scottish football which he described as "opium for the people, the fans of Hearts".

"During the elections [to become president] Varanavicius was promising to revive Lithuanian football, build new stadiums, but at that time Lithuanian football was in 50th place in the world and now it has fallen down to 100th. He has not fulfilled his promises," he said.

"In five years nothing has been achieved. Mr Romanov could have raised the standard of Lithuanian football. Liutauras Varanavicius, his man, promised that but he didn’t do that."

However Vaiginas said he believed the purchase of Hearts would be a good thing for Lithuanian footballers because it would give them a greater chance of playing at the club and moving on to a bigger one.

Romanov does have support from an unlikely quarter with Virginijus Liubsys, head coach of arch-rivals Ekranas, saying Hearts fans should welcome him.

"He invests large amounts and if he does it correctly he will do a good job for Hearts because he has proved that in Lithuania already," he said.

A LEADING FBK Kaunas fan, who asked not to be named, described Romanov as "a fair and decent person" and said without him there would be no football team in Lithuania’s second city.

Of Hearts’ prospects under the new regime, he added: "I think Mr Romanov can do it. Roman Abramovic raised Chelsea and I think Mr Romanov can do the same with Hearts. You cannot tell anything bad about Mr Romanov himself. All the bad talk or gossip is always about the people from his surroundings."

The chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Lithuania might find Romanov amenable to sponsoring the Vilnius Burns’ Night - he has previously sponsored events such as a Miss Russian Kaunas competition and is also believed to be the largest donor to the Russian Orthodox church in Lithuania, something which helped him to be awarded with the church’s highest honour.

According to Ausra Leka, editor-in-chief of Kauno Diena, a national newspaper based in Kaunas, Romanov is better known for his private parties than his business dealings.

"He likes to do very rich festivities for example when it is the Russian New Year. Every year he gives a very nice feast on this date," she said. "It’s a big festivity with hundreds of people and Mr Romanov pays for it. Usually if an institution or a person makes a party in Lithuania, it ends at about nine or ten o’clock. When Mr Romanov makes this party, it is for all night.

"But he is not a very open person and he tries not to make a lot of noise. It’s not a surname that everyday is in our newspapers. He is a little bit of a mystery."

Romanov’s rustling around among the leaves of his family tree drew a blank. Any relationship to the royal family that was almost wiped out by Russian revolutionaries was too long ago to trace.

Whether Hearts fans will come to hail him as the Tsar of Tynecastle or stage their own popular revolt against his reign remains to be seen.

Taken from the Scotsman