If Vladimir Romanov won't pay Hearts' wage bill, SFA and SPL must act

Romanov will have his own agenda yet what of those who are apparently custodians of the game in Scotland?

It seems to have escaped the attention of everybody that the players at Heart of Midlothian are still waiting for their November wages. Which may well be the way Vladimir Romanov wants it. Scotland's football authorities seem to have adopted the same approach.

In an ominous situation at Tynecastle Romanov is looking to dispense with his majority shareholding and, more pertinently and immediately, the Lithuania-based businessman is seemingly unwilling to pay his first-team squad in the meantime. Their last pay date was 16 November.

Romanov's stewardship of Hearts has been erratic and flawed but plenty of people have profited from it. Not least, that is, the players and tax authorities who have benefitted from circa £50m being dished out in – routinely exorbitant – salaries over five years.

Those who have predicted the demise of Hearts – barely trying to hide their glee in the process – are never able to specify exactly how and why that will occur. Romanov's interventions have been of benefit to Hearts, given the ruinous route the club was heading down seven years ago. An intention to let high earners depart to give youngsters increased exposure is about four years overdue.

Such matters are not, however, an excuse for the present scenario or an explanation for the approach of the Scottish Football Association and Premier League. Last month, Hearts' players waited 19 days for wage payments. This time around, there is no timescale or explanation offered by the club for the situation being resolved.

Romanov will have his own agenda for not releasing the necessary funds. Yet what of those who are apparently custodians of the game in Scotland? The attitude seems perfectly clear: keep quiet, bury heads, hope the problem vanishes. They have done the same in relation to Hearts' current and convenient noncooperation with any external media.

Such a stance is all the more disappointing given the steps made by the SFA to reform an archaic football setup. They now have a compliance officer in place, for example, but is his job merely to implement a more stringent penal system towards players? Why does his role not include the protection of those same individuals?

Neither the SFA nor the SPL has even issued a firm statement, pointing out their discontent at Hearts' unwillingness to honour the contracts of their employees. That would seem to be a core responsibility of a football club. It also seems legitimate that the bodies of which the club is a member put pressure on them to meet such a responsibility.

If Romanov reckons continual nonpayment can occur without any form of scrutiny, let alone sanction, then he will be of a mind to keep doing it. Which in itself is clearly harmful for the integrity and image of Scottish football. In the meantime, those who oversee it stand back and do nothing. The Hearts squad must also develop some collective backbone to challenge the owner's utterly flawed, and harmful, logic.

An equally worrying stance appears from the element of Hearts' own support, who claim "overpaid" players aren't worthy of wages in any case. The approach of said fans would be altogether different, of course, if it was their own salaries that failed to arrive.

The reality is that Romanov's policy is damaging for morale at Tynecastle and, by direct association, unfair towards those who invest time and effort in following Hearts week on week. Players are distracted by the turmoil around them, a matter that cannot be ignored when taking Hearts' on-field underperformance into account.

The silence on this episode is deafening, when it should be anything but. If those in charge of Scottish football genuinely have its best interests at heart, they would do well to focus on key troubles that instantly undermine what glimmers of positive sentiment appear. When the third biggest club in the country don't pay their players, it is shameful that football's overlords cower rather than challenge.

Taken from the Guardian/Observer