Hearts players paid but win bonuses deferred amid ongoing disquiet

STUART BATHGATE
Chief Sports Writer

HEARTS were able to pay all of their playing staff on schedule yesterday, and they also paid the wages from last week which some of the club's most highly-paid players had agreed to defer.
Some win bonuses, however, remain outstanding, with no schedule set for giving players the sums agreed for some of their recent victories.

The club remain unable or unwilling to give a straightforward explanation as to the reason for the problem over payment of wages.

In a surreal moment at yesterday's weekly press briefing, manager Csaba Laszlo attempted to illustrate the difficulty with a favourite saying which could have been plucked straight from the Eric Cantona Guide to Footballers and Philosophy.

"We don't sit in the same boat as you," said Laszlo. " We might be on the same lake but we don't sit in the same boat. But we take the fishes from the same lake."

While Laszlo was quite sure of what he meant, no-one else in the room was quite so confident.

The issue of bonus payments is complicated by the fact that, for the second time this season, Hearts are trying to implement a new incentive system. The first, according to Michael Stewart, was introduced by Laszlo at the start of the season when he took over as manager. Negotiations over the new arrangement were begun three weeks ago – "not in any negative way", Stewart said – and the players believe agreement will soon be reached.

"It's in discussion," the midfielder said. "We have been talking with the club hierarchy in Edinburgh, and we've been informed we'll be paid over the next couple of weeks."

It only emerged on Thursday that, contrary to a statement coming out of Tynecastle three days earlier, up to half a dozen players had not received their money from the previous week. The majority of the playing staff got paid on the Monday – three days later than usual – but some of the highest earners agreed, after a meeting with sport director Anatoly Korobochka, to wait a bit longer. Bruno Aguiar and Christos Karipidis were among the players concerned as the club looked for a way to be able to pay the bulk of its playing staff.

With the most highly paid ten players understood to account for around half of the club's wage bill, it was simpler for Hearts to agree a deferment with some of those individuals rather than cause inconvenience to greater numbers.

While a club spokesman was happy to confirm yesterday that everyone had been paid, there was no suggestion that a line could be drawn under the matter for the rest of the season.

Unless Hearts' parent company, Ukio Bankas Investment Group (Ubig), find themselves able to produce more funding, the club will have to generate the money themselves.

They only have one remaining home game this year, and, with season-ticket holders accounting for the bulk of Tynecastle attendances, they cannot expect a bumper sum from that match against Dundee United five days before Christmas.

The derby at home to Hibs on 3 January will help some more, and the Scottish Cup match at Easter Road eight days later will yield further revenue – the gate receipts are split 50-50 in that competition.

By the time of that first derby of 2009, of course, the transfer window will be open, and there is every likelihood that Hearts will try to move on at least one of their most valuable players.

"For me it is not easy at the moment to talk about January," he said. "At the moment I don't think about this challenge. My plan is definitely to bring new players and to sell players. If you go to Celtic they also want to sell players.

"I can't tell you names – we get this and this player. It is too early. I talk with the owner (Vladimir Romanov] and the sport director about what is possible.

"I was in Lithuania two weeks (ago] and the issue was the transfer window, not money. I don't talk with the owner in the last two weeks."

The players' union, the Professional Footballers' Association Scotland, has monitored the pay situation at Hearts from a distance. Senior players at the club have been in touch with the union, but officials there believe that, for the present at least, there is no need for them to become directly involved.

Laryea Kingston, whose undoubted ability has not been consistently on display since he moved to Scotland, has already attracted the attention of some English clubs and he is a favourite to move on in January.

With more than adequate cover in midfield, Hearts could take a calculated risk and decide they would not suffer too much if Kingston were to leave.

The Ghanaian midfielder cost Hearts £500,000 when he signed from Terek Grozny in the summer of 2007 after an initial six-month loan period expired. He is one of Hearts' most high- profile players, and in a buoyant transfer market they could expect to make a decent profit on that half-million-pound outlay. Whether any club feels able or willing to pay so much money now, however, is another matter.

Christophe Berra, the centre-half and captain, and Andrew Driver, the winger, have already been the subject of inquiries by English clubs. But, being younger than the 28-year-old Kingston, both players will probably increase in market value over the next couple of years, and Hearts should therefore do what they can to hold on to them.

But the scale of the clearout depends on the extent of the cash-flow crisis which forced the non-payment of wages last week and on one previous occasion back in September. At yesterday's press conference at Tynecastle, Laszlo implied that Hearts, in common with every other club, were looking at players they wanted to bring in and others who they wanted to move on.

Taken from the Scotsman