Romanov enjoys fantasy football

To judge by the outrage of Hearts fans over the events of last week, you might imagine that their owner is the most wicked Romanov to emerge from Russia since Ivan the Terrible. To me, on the other hand, Vladimir Romanov is something of a hero. By deciding to pick the team himself, he fulfills the dream of every fan who ever fantasised about buying his or her club and seizing control of the dressing room.

Admittedly, driving George Burley away early in the season when Hearts looked on course for the Scottish Premier League title was a dubious strategic move. There is an argument that, as one of our finest younger coaches, Mr Burley was more qualified to judge than Mr Romanov, whose football experience appears limited to owning Lithuania's first private bank.

And perhaps last week's reprise with Graham Rix wasn't too clever either but then, as an old Romanov enemy so nearly observed, history tends to repeat itself; the first time as farce, the second time as farce. A bamboozled Mr Rix didn't seem too impressed as he met reporters to offer no comment, and the six changes imposed on Tuesday's team caused Hearts to draw a game they'd probably have won normally.

Having said that, let's strive for balance and observe that Mr Romanov did show some restraint. He resisted the temptation to select his son Roman, the club chairman, at left back. Nor did he pick the niece he has installed as a non-executive director, a mysterious young woman who calls herself Julija Goncaruk, but whom I have a strong hunch may be the Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Myself, had I spent loose change on the first British club to take my fancy, I'd pick the tea lady if I wanted, and damn the supporters. All Mr Romanov is doing is playing Plutocrat Fantasy Football, and so long as British football is run on Wild West principles similar to those that seem to govern the former Soviet Union, what point is there in complaining? This is an obvious, if extreme, result of an unshackled free market being unleashed on a business which, because of the quasi-religious hold football clubs exert over their followers, some would like subjected to more intervention than less emotionally-involving industries.

So it's little use Scots going in for pre-Valentine's Day moaning, in their silly old socialist way, about a wealthy foreign egomaniac toying with their Hearts. The Marxists may have had the better of it in 1918, but that was then. Now it's time for the Romanov revenge.

Taken from telegraph.co.uk