Champions League is just the beginning, insists Romanov

HEARTS' hard-fought victory over Aberdeen on Wednesday brought a successful end to the long campaign to finish in the top two of the SPL and thus qualify for the Champions League. In terms of what Vladimir Romanov plans for the club, however, it constitutes no more than a modest beginning.

As he approaches the culmination of his first full season in charge of Hearts, the Lithuanian businessman has reason to be pleased with his investment. His team are in the Scottish Cup final, and have just got into the top competition in European club football for the first time in almost half a century.

Yet as well as pleasure, Romanov also feels a degree of frustration. Rather than being shocked by how swiftly relative success has come, he has admitted to feeling surprised at the extent of the transformation required to equip Hearts for the steep ascent he plans for them.

"At first when I came to Hearts I thought all I'd need to do is put money in," Romanov told The Scotsman through an interpreter. "I thought: great, everything else is in place, the management team, great - but when I started to understand the way things were working and understand their level of knowledge I realised it would take me 100 years to sink to that level.

"Their knowledge needs to be raised up to correspond to my vision. It's sad, but that's how it is."

Romanov is by no means the first person to have decided that Scottish football is a backwater in terms both of the standard of play and the business methods - or lack of method - employed by its leading clubs. He is, however, among the first to come in from outside with experience of a different way of working, and with the desire and wherewithal to do something about it.

Hearts supporters have become wearily accustomed to decades of under-achievement and under-investment. The message from Romanov is that they should no longer settle for this, and that in a city the size and affluence of Edinburgh, so much more could be achieved.

"I'm personally convinced that a city like Edinburgh has the potential to build a club where the number of fans wanting to go to games is no less than those who go to games in Barcelona," he continued. "But that doesn't depend on me. That's something that the city has to decide.

"These are the matches I dream of. Battles with top English and Italian teams. One of the key ingredients is a modern stadium. The possibilities for the stadium are far from exhausted. We're building a new stand that will raise the capacity to 25,000. It's possible that a few years down the line we'll also look at revamping the other stand, which could then take the capacity up to 30,000.

"We can say at the moment that the club's debt has effectively been written off. That said, we want to see the club continuing to achieve, to move higher, and achieve ambitions which should not be impeded in any way by economic factors. In order to see the club becoming more viable, we need to have specialists working in parallel - not just coaching staff, we're talking about marketing, ticket sales, fan relations."

Besides being surprised at how rundown by his own standards the Hearts operation was when he took over, Romanov has also had his eyes opened by aspects of Scottish football. While his initial instinct and that of his lieutenants may have been to demand inquiries into this or that iniquity, he is now reconciled to a more measured approach, and accepts that some longstanding problems cannot be solved in an instant.

One of these is what both the businessman and many followers of Hearts and of other clubs believe is the institutionalised bias within Scottish football towards the Old Firm. And one aspect of that alleged bias is the standard of refereeing.

"These are issues which are not going to be resolved overnight," added Romanov. "It's not something you can resolve in the dark, and we don't want to create a big tragedy out of it. But they do need to be resolved nonetheless. There are some serious issues with the quality of the refereeing which need to be addressed. Corrective measures need to be taken. But there are exceptions also.

"Tuesday night's Hibs-Rangers match, for example - the levels of professionalism shown by the referee were excellent. He didn't allow discipline or control of the game to be lost, so that gives us hope.

"I've discovered a lot for myself this season. I've come to the conclusion that there are issues with the game in Scotland that need to be addressed. I wouldn't want to say I've understood everything - that takes more than one year."

The amount of upheaval at Tynecastle, however, is perhaps an indication of Romanov's attempts to understand the situation and deal with it.

Since he took over as majority shareholder, John Robertson, George Burley and Graham Rix have all had their stints as manager ended, while Phil Anderton was relieved of his post as chief executive and the former chairman George Foulkes was also ousted.

The latter two were both replaced by Romanov's only son, Roman, and for the moment, the father is relatively happy with the acting chairman and chief executive. Nonetheless, he insists that the business personnel of the club could easily change.

"Roman can't continue to sit on two seats, but that's really for him to determine. He needs to look at whether he wants to be here on a permanent basis.

"Roman's involved in running a lot of projects for us. You have to bear in mind that we need to earn money and run projects that make income for us, and Hearts at the moment don't do that - we're at the investment stage here. As far as I see the situation, we have a temporary management system in place which is allowing us to run the affairs of the club."

One change he has previously suggested is to become a board member himself. For the moment at least, though, he appears to have gone off such a move, and feels no need to become club president or take any similar honorific title.

"This was a response to something I've encountered in the British mentality," he said of the earlier remarks about becoming president. "Directors are very proprietorial about clubs, and regardless of what an outsider is doing for the club, if they're not nominally part of the institution it's frowned on. Then a solution is for me to take up an official role. But I think that's something that will wait until I've given up my business activities."

Indeed, what is the point of a titular role if you have an actual, multifaceted role already? Just how multifaceted Romanov's role is, however, remains a matter of debate. He clearly has the major say in Hearts' business strategy, and Rix, among others, has complained of his attempt to influence team selection. Although he does not deny having an influence on the line-ups chosen by Rix and those who came before and after him, he qualifies that by insisting he is not alone in that respect.

"I could easily pick a team, but for that I'd need medical qualifications, I'd need to spend a year on the training ground getting to know the players, I would need a lot of knowledge which I don't have. I have an understanding of football, but I don't have the knowledge you require.

"If I had all that, sure, I'd have a go at picking the team, but that's not the case. Indirectly, everyone influences the team. More than anyone else, journalists influence the team." If that is the case, expect to see Julien Brellier back in for the Rangers match.

But there was a mischievous glint in Romanov's eye as he made the remark, as indeed there was throughout the conversation. No doubt he can be a tough, demanding employer, and one who deals ruthlessly with those he thinks have let him down. Burley could testify to that, although these days it is the former manager's assistant, Simon Hunt, who bears the brunt of the Romanov wrath for supposedly being too well disposed towards destabilising influences such as agents.

Yet Romanov also comes across as genial, and a man who is at least as hard on himself as he is on those who work for him. Having already achieved his personal dream of flourishing in business, he longs to see his club emulate that on the field. The long haul has only just begun.

Taken from the Scotsman