Spreading the smelly stuff around

Romanov should accept blame for stench of manure on ‘his crops’ says Ian Bell

The meaning of this strange remark will become clear momentarily, but let us spread a little manure over Vladimir Romanov’s crops this autumn morning. The owner of Hearts may find the whiff of truth unpleasant, but it is this: proprietors should never pick the team, far less have the last word in training regimes. That way lies disaster, sooner or later.

The man providing the money is entitled to decide how it is spent, I suppose, and therefore has a right to a final say in transfer dealings. But when the source of the cash flowing in and out of Tynecastle is obscure, and when the impact on the club’s debts is veiled in mystery, public interest – not to mention manure – is liable to follow.

If you have no idea why the column has developed an agricultural theme, I should explain. Last week, with Hearts still flattering to deceive – 4-0 against Alloa is no renaissance; the Uefa Cup is probably already a lost cause – Romanov named the guilty men. The media. But of course.

We all hate Hearts, obviously. Since the “Lithuania-based” business operative is these days Mr Tynecastle, he takes this personally, in a spirit of authentic paranoia. I can stand fairly accused, as a son of Edinburgh, of failing to favour maroon, but I could name half a dozen journalists of a very different persuasion. Romanov thinks otherwise.

To illustrate the point, he embarked last week on a frankly weird parable involving the Bolsheviks of old Soviet times who enforced farm collectivisation with mass executions. Romanov invoked one peasant facing death “because he planted the seeds following his own way”. Then came one cunning commissar who said: “Let’s shoot him in the autumn after he has gathered his harvest”.

Still with me? Clearly, the owner of Hearts has been studying the ineffable poetry of Eric Cantona, but he wasn’t done. “I guess that if you could, I would already have been shot by now,” he told the media, “but whilst you can’t, full of hate and anger, you are spreading manure on my crops. Naturally, this is disgusting and offensive to clear up after you.”

As possibly the last journalist in Scotland who doesn’t mind being called a Bolshevik, a revolutionary thought springs to mind: lighten up, Vlad. It wasn’t the press who contrived that less-than-convincing win over Motherwell, after all.

Deconstructed, the real interest in the owner’s remarks was two-fold. First, this is clearly a man who is, shall we say, emotionally fragile. Secondly, what was long suspected turns out to be the truth: Romanov is picking the team, dictating training schedules, and reserving to himself the final say over signings.

Clearly, head coach Valdas Ivanauskas, “under pressure” or not, counts as a figurehead, a bag carrier. He arrived in quick succession to a series of “managers”, good, bad and indifferent, who went through the Gorgie revolving door like a scene from a Marx Brothers movie.

His record, if it is his record, is patchy. But what the hell: Romanov has already sacked him once, at FBK Kaunas, so he labours under no illusions.

Besides, Ivanauskas has the support of his players, at least according to Michal Pospisil. That assurance is probably worth the paper on which it wasn’t written, and is sure to deter Romanov the next time he has the urge to rip everything up and start again.

In any case, Ivanauskas can always turn to Anatoli Korobochka, Hearts’ “director of sport”, whose influence on proceedings at Tynecastle has thus far been – what’s the word? – undetectable.

To be fair, most Hearts fans don’t much care whether the entertainment is being provided by a one-man band or a full jazz orchestra. They should. It doesn’t matter to them that Romanov is a touch eccentric, and certainly autocratic. It should. They don’t bother about anything, really, beyond a respectable league placing and the construction of a big squad with decent players. They should, they really should.

As Romanov should know from his days as a submariner, some boats can sink as quickly as they can surface. Hearts’ debts are now held by the Lithuanian bank that sponsors the shirts and in which he has an interest.

But since Vlad took over and delisted the club, no one knows what those debts might be. There is no longer any requirement for transparency at Tynecastle and that, of itself, is a cause for worry. It is a safe bet, nevertheless, that the debts are not shrinking.

What happens if Romanov grows bored with the grind of Scottish football? What happens if his vaulting ambition – a top European side, no less – is not fulfilled? The man has money, clearly, but no one is sure how much, or, vainglorious words aside, how much of it he is prepared to spend.

All we know is that Hearts were in financial difficulties before he took over and that, self-evidently, the wage bill has increased while the club’s economic base has remained pretty much the same.

All this is so much manure to Romanov and his admirers, of course. They could yet prove the muck spreaders wrong: anything is possible. But Hearts, successful or not, are providing us with another of those too-familiar football tales. Here, another public institution has disappeared from public scrutiny. Another club, with deep roots in its community, has become the possession – I do not say the plaything – of a single wealthy individual whose personal history is somewhat mysterious. And there is not a thing anyone can do about it.

As I say, many Hearts fans see no reason to concern themselves with any of that. Perhaps they labour under the delusion that football’s authorities take care of the business end . They don’t. Even if they had the will, they lack the means. The fact is that Romanov paid his money and now makes the choices.

He bought the business, lock, stock and smoking balance sheet. The ethos and traditions of Hearts were not part of the package, more’s the pity.

Taken from the Sunday Herald