Romanov bang on course at Hearts

MARK WILSON May 25 2006

Vladimir Romanov's most trusted confidant last night insisted the Lithuanian banker would not rest until Hearts were a regular fixture in the last 16 of the Champions League.

Liutauras Varanavicius also believes the Tynecastle club would have been crowned Bank of Scotland Premierleague champions for the season past had Celtic not crashed out of European competition at the first hurdle.

Varanavicius stepped down as a non-executive director of Hearts in February and has recently been unanimously re-elected as president of the Lithuanian Football Federation. Also chairman of Romanov's Ukio Bankas, his association with the Tynecastle owner stretches back more than a decade and he was at the vanguard of his move to invest in Scottish football.

A turbulent, yet successful, first full season ended with Hearts lifting the Tennent's Scottish Cup and qualifying for next season's Champions League preliminaries.

Varanavicius believes the cynics should now fall silent and predicted far greater glories under Romanov's autocratic leadership.

"This success is only the beginning because Romanov has bigger targets," said Varanavicius, who referred to his compatriot by his surname throughout a conference call with the Scottish media. "He is proving to people that what he says is what he is going to do.

"His ultimate goal is to have a team playing at the very highest level in Europe. The last 16 of the Champions League will be a constant target for Hearts. That is definitely what Romanov wants.

"He is already spending the money, so that is not in question. But it is also about raising the quality of young players from within Hearts. The club has a very good academy and a lot of those in the team, like Craig Gordon, came through that route and are top-level players.

"One of Romanov's drawbacks, in my opinion, is that when he takes on a project he never leaves it. He doesn't behave like a real banker in that respect. Even if people advise him to drop something, he will keep going until he has made it a success."

Varanavicius believes Celtic's defeat by Artmedia Bratislava in last season's Champions League qualifiers was hugely damaging to Hearts' hopes of becoming SPL champions. Under George Burley's management, the club had won its first eight league matches and shaken up the Old Firm duopoly.

"I think that, in the beginning, they [Celtic and Rangers] were really not ready for us," said Varanavicius. "If Celtic had stayed for longer in the Champions League, I think Hearts would definitely have been the league winners – or at least make a much smaller gap in the points.

"But when Celtic dropped out of the Champions League, they concentrated very much on the championship and they were quite good in the second half. Next season will be even more interesting in Scotland."

Varanavicius's duties with UEFA have earned him the friendship of Michel Platini but, more relevantly, an intimate knowledge of European football's regulations. Hearts would drop into the UEFA Cup if they lost in the third qualifying round of the Champions League and therefore possibly compete with FBK Kaunas, another club in whom Romanov's organisation has a strong interest and one which frequently purchases players to be loaned to Tynecastle.

However, Varanavicius does not believe either club should be concerned about a conflict of interest.

"We have checked this with the UEFA rules and currently we do not see any problem," he said.

"It would be up to UEFA to decide but we already have the precedent of CSKA Moscow and Chelsea last season [Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner, sponsored CSKA through his oil company]. I don't think there would be different treatment to this case.

"There is nothing in the rules about the loaned players playing against Kaunas and, as far as I am aware, nothing in the players' contracts that would be a problem either."

In his presidential role, Varanavicius is in talks with the Scottish Football Association over ticket allocations for the Euro 2008 qualifier due to take place in Kaunas in September.

Squeezing as many of the Tartan Army as possible into the 8300 stadium is providing a headache. "At the beginning, Scotland asked for up to 4000 but I said that was not possible and that we could allocate 2400," he said.

"I asked for confirmation from the Scottish FA but I've waited a month and not had that yet.

"It is a tough group but the favourites in our group are not Italy or France. The favourites are Ukraine and I think that will be shown in the World Cup.

"The chances of both Scotland and Lithuania depend on luck and I don't want to say that one country is better than the other."

Taken from the Herald