Romanov's right to rant curbed

THE SFA passed a resolution yesterday which its officials believe will curb Vladimir Romanov's freedom to speak out about Scottish football. The governing body of the sport agreed that "shadow directors" should come under its jurisdiction as well as actual directors and other employees of member clubs, and those who drafted the resolution are confident that the Hearts owner will come under the new classification.

David Taylor, the SFA's chief executive, declined to discuss individuals, but it is clear that the motion - passed unanimously at yesterday's emergency general meeting which was held along with the annual general meeting - was designed with Romanov in mind. It reads: "Club official shall mean any person having a function or duty or a position involving authority within the club, including any person who is able to exercise control over the majority of the board, whether or not such a person is intimated as holding the office of director."

Since buying into Hearts, Romanov has made several outspoken criticisms of various aspects of Scottish football, including refereeing standards and what he believes is an institutional bias towards Celtic and Rangers. He has hitherto been able to do so with impunity as he holds no official post at Tynecastle, where his son Roman is both the chairman and acting chief executive. Taylor denied that the SFA had been frustrated by the inability to rein Romanov in, preferring to see the measure as the closing of an unfair loophole. "There's no sense of frustration as such," he said.

"It's where there is an obvious weakness, if there are issues about comments in the press and people are able to evade the rules and regulations of the association where others are caught by them, we have to look at the justice of that. So it's to put everybody on the same footing, that's the way we look at it. There's a concept in company law that says you cannot sit behind the scenes and manage a company without formally taking the role of a director. What we've done is to ensure that the concept of shadow director is simply translated [into football].

"If you do exercise control of a football club you will not escape our jurisdiction. What we felt was important is that in the situation at the moment there's a loophole to be closed. There could still be a situation where people would contest that and say: 'I'm not caught by that provision', but I think you'll agree that by going to these lengths we feel that largely closes the loophole."

The SFA can now be expected to take action against the outspoken Romanov or anyone else that it deems to be a shadow director if they say anything deemed to bring Scottish football into disrepute. Only if and when they do so will they learn if their resolution is to face a legal challenge.

That could be based on the assertion, noted by Taylor, that the accused is not covered by the term 'shadow director', but a case could also be brought in which an individual asserts his or her freedom of expression. The chief executive is convinced that the Scottish legal authorities are generally unwilling to intervene in sporting matters, but European law could be a different matter.

On the other hand, Romanov could choose to accept his status as a shadow director but still dispute the veracity of comments attributed to him. If those comments had not been aired at a press conference or in another public forum it could then be incumbent on the SFA to prove they had actually been said, and that nothing of note had been lost in translation from Russian, the only language in which Romanov addresses the media.

Meanwhile, Hearts could be ready to add to their Lithuanian contingent by signing the CSKA Moscow defender Deividas Semberas. The international right-back has said he has been approached by the Tynecastle side.

The 43-times capped Semberas has an impressive pedigree having been part of the CSKA side that defeated Sporting Lisbon in the 2005 UEFA Cup final. He also helped eliminate Rangers from Champions League qualifying that season.

Taken from the Scotsman