Romanov is wrong to allow Webster's contractual situation to distort his judgment

AROUND 1970, when the peerless George Best was in his dazzling prime, it was mischievously put about that, were he playing for Rangers under Willie Waddell, he would have been dropped for non-compliance with an order to change his fashionably long hair to a Marines-style short-back-and sides.

The joke was intended as a slight on "Deedle's" renowned affinity with his idea of what constituted tradition and propriety and to ridicule the gruff manager's sense of priorities. It also served perfectly well as a reminder of the potential folly of allowing personal - and basically irrelevant - matters to interfere with business. Best's Beatle-esque mop-top was the least of the worries he visited upon Matt Busby at Old Trafford, the venerable Scot demonstrating his grasp of the player's value by continuing to include him in his championship- and European Cup-winning teams despite a well-publicised lifestyle that made famous hellraisers like Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Oliver Reed look like disciples of St Francis of Assisi.

It is a lesson that seems not to have been absorbed by the present-day Hearts hierarchy - or, more specifically as we understand it, Vladimir Romanov - if the Andy Webster affair is any guide.

Media representatives who gathered at Easter Road before last Saturday's derby match were genuinely taken aback on learning the identities of the players who would be charged with the task of beating Hibernian and extending their lead over Rangers to eight points.

It was Tennent's Scottish Cup semi-final day in reverse. At Hampden Park three weeks earlier, the majority of observers took one look at Hibs' seriously weakened line-up and concluded - with impeccable judgment, as the 4-0 scoreline testified - that Tony Mowbray's team were beaten before a ball had been kicked.

At Easter Road, a colleague with a pronounced allegiance to Tynecastle expressed serious misgivings about their prospects on discovering that Webster was one of several dependable, well-established first picks to have been omitted for arbitrary, rather than fitness, reasons. Hibs' 2-1 victory over opponents featuring an untried central defence partnership of Christophe Berra and Ibrahim Tall vindicated the reservations.

The news in midweek that Romanov regarded Webster, the 24-year-old Scotland defender, as no longer trustworthy because his agent has been trying to engineer his transfer to another club simply confirmed the initial impression that the club's owner had, in effect, allowed an immaterial contractual issue to distort his judgment.

Hearts supporters, alert scrutineers of every nuance of Romanov's actions these days, would not have missed - and would have been unable to resist - the comparison between Webster's situation and that of Stilian Petrov at Celtic. Unlike the defender, the Bulgarian midfielder had expressed his wish to leave his club in the most emphatic way possible, by submitting a written transfer request to the chief executive, Peter Lawwell.

But even this unambiguous declaration would have no effect on the decision by his manager, Gordon Strachan, to include Petrov in the team that would face Rangers the day after the Edinburgh derby. Strachan may appear at times to be impulsive, but not to the extent of refusing to select one of his most formidable assets for am Old Firm match because he may not be around next season.

The principal difference between Strachan and Romanov, of course, is that the Celtic manager is answerable to supporters and directors for seemingly irrational behaviour that could have a detrimental effect on his status.

Until season-ticket sales indicate otherwise, the former submariner at Tynecastle has the freedom to sink a few small boats without serious repercussions.

AT BRAZIL'S first press conference at the World Cup in Italy in 1990, the opening question to the manager, Sebastao Lazarone, was: "Do you agree that you are a traitor to Brazilian football?"

The journalist who plunged this stiletto between Lazarone's shoulder blades was articulating the widespread anxiety of a media corps convinced that the coach's emphasis on pragmatic football - as opposed to the stream-of-consciousness improvisation for which the Brazilians were renowned - was a betrayal of the country's tradition.

Lazarone treated the question as perfunctorily as he would an innocuous inquiry about injuries, shrugging it off with a straightforward, unemotional response. It was a practical demonstration of how accustomed managers of Brazil are to an immovably inquisitive, and frequently hostile press.

It is also enough to make anyone wonder why Luiz Felipe Scolari should be so spooked by the arrival of 20 reporters on his doorstep the other night that he decided against accepting the FA's offer of the England job.

The answer is that, for all the abuse managers of Brazil may have to endure in relation to their handling of the national team, the South American country does not have tabloids as we know them in Britain.

Scolari is said to be jealous of his privacy to the point of paranoia, having once punched a reporter who was trying to investigate the private life of one of his players. The prospect of facing the rottweilers of the English tabs was clearly too much to bear.

Taken from the Scotsman