Hearts remain upbeat despite multi-million pound losses

Ewan Murray
Thursday March 20, 2008
The Guardian

Heart of Midlothian will report record debts of £37-38m when they publish their accounts for the financial year ended July 2007 within a fortnight. The Edinburgh club, owned by the Lithuanian Vladimir Romanov, owed £28.4m in 2006; the increased losses are almost entirely down to exorbitant annual staff costs.

Hearts stress, however, that the borrowings are within the £40m limit which was put in place at the annual general meeting a year ago and that there are no plans to raise that ceiling.
It is also notable that Craig Gordon, the Scotland goalkeeper, was sold to Sunderland for more than £7m - rising to £9m based on appearances - last August. A deal is provisionally in place to sell Roman Bednar to West Bromwich this summer for £2m. Steven Pressley and Paul Hartley have left Tynecastle and they and Gordon were understood to have commanded basic salaries of £1.2m between them.

The scale of Hearts' debts, owed in the main to Ukio Bankas, a bank owned by Romanov and Ukio Bankas Investment Group, the parent company, will still cause alarm in certain quarters. About £1m has been spent on a plan to redevelop Tynecastle's main stand and surrounding area at a full cost of £51m in a bid to increase long-term profitability. However, the team have struggled on the pitch. Last season they finished fourth in the league and did not qualify for Europe; this campaign sees the team currently lying seventh.

Romanov, who has put the team in the hands of the caretaker Stephen Frail since January, has stated his desire to appoint a full-time manager with "experience of British football", and Motherwell's Mark McGhee is the clear frontrunner. Craig Levein, presently in charge of Dundee United, will also come into contention.

Taken from the Guardian/Observer