£6MILLION IN 6 HOURS

HEARTS will pocket £6million - almost an entire season's takings - if they get into the Champions League.

Tynecastle operations director Campbell Ogilvie says the cash could come their way in six hours - the time it takes to play two qualifying rounds.

Ogilvie has vast experience of Europe's elite competition after 27 years at Rangers but he knows the odds are stacked more heavily against Hearts as they bid to mix with the continent's football aristocrats.

Last night he said: "We should be under no apprehensions about what we're taking on.

"If we get past either the Bosnians Saroki Brijes or Belarussia's Shakhtyor Soligorsk in our opening qualifier we could find ourselves in the company of clubs whose annual turnover would be £50m-plus.

"But the financial incentive for us to make it into the Champions League proper is massive - which is also the word I'd use to describe the level of ambition I've discovered at Tynecastle since arriving here from Ibrox six months ago.

"Hearts closed the gap on the Old Firm last season and can do the same again. We are the third force in Scottish football and we want to become the first force.

"Look at the size of the crowd we took to Hampden for the Scottish Cup Final against Gretna and our record-breaking season ticket sales.

"When I left Rangers, I was spending 80 per cent of my time on my duties as a member of the SFA board and 20 per cent at Ibrox.

"Now I head up five departments at Tynecastle and I spend 80 per cent of my time at the ground with 20 per cent devoted to the SFA."

Ogilvie insists no bitterness was attached to his departure from Rangers, leaving sceptics to take or leave his explanation of the events that led to Martin Bain assuming his role at Ibrox.

He said: "I left on good terms and there was no fall-out with Martin. The structure of the club had changed and I had drifted away from the areas in which I once worked.

"But there are similarities between working for David Murray at Rangers and Vladimir Romanov at Tynecastle.

"Both are self-made men who have taken control of football clubs and want them run their way. Once I reported to a man in Edinburgh but now I send my monthly reports to a man in Lithuania.

"I also believe you can only speak as you find when it comes to the people you work for and I have developed a good relationship with Mr Romanov."

The former submariner has torpedoed three managers, John Robertson, Craig Burley and Graham Rix, and watched a chief executive, Phil Anderton, and a chairman, George Foulkes, walk our rather than work with him.

Ogilvie started out in football as an administrator with the Scottish League before his talents took him to Rangers. Tynecastle is the home of mayhem compared with the places he has been before.

He said: "Maybe I like a bit of rough and tumble. There were plenty of scrapes at Ibrox but time dims the recollection.

"I was out of work for six weeks after I left Rangers and it gave me time to think about what an emotive game football can be.

"Now I'm more relaxed, even though I know I could be out of a job this time next week because Tynecastle can be such a volatile place to work.

"Vladimir comes from a different culture and he's taking time to get used to our ways. It reminds me of the situation when Dick Advocaat first went to Rangers from Dutch football.

"The important thing is for me to know the lines of demarcation."

In other words, Romanov is the commander in chief and commissioned officers aren't expected to cause him grief.

Ogilvie's strength lies in bringing quietly thought-out order to places where chaos threatens to break out.

He will now help oversee Hearts' temporary move to Murrayfield while anew, state-of-the-art stand is built to complete Tynecastle, one of the most atmospheric grounds in Britain.

And his knowledge of how UEFA works will be put to use concerning forthcoming legislation governing the number of home-based players who must be in team squads.

He said: "A planning application for the stand that will take the ground's capacity up to 25,000 has still to be lodged but we hope work will begin in a year's time and the stand completed 18 months after that.

"Also, UEFA will demand that all clubs have four native-born players in any squad of 25, effective a year from now. Twelve months after that the number of indigenous players must double to eight.

"We must be aware of this while working in an environment in which Hearts have taken full advantage of no limit on the players you can have on loan from another country."

Not even Romanov in one of his fiery moments can send out a U-boat and blow European football's governing body out of the water. So it's just as well he has Ogilvie standing calmy by his side on the bridge.

Taken from the Daily Record