Hearts players finally get part of overdue wages

By BARRY ANDERSON
Published on Monday 5 December 2011 12:02

HEARTS players have received a portion of their overdue wages after Ukio Bankas Investment Group, the club’s parent company, processed a payment of around £1000 for each player. UBIG officials are now attempting to source the remaining funds to complete salary payments which were originally due on November 16.

Payments have been deposited into players’ bank accounts although UBIG do not consider it as any kind of Christmas bonus. The remainder of November’s wages is still outstanding and the Tynecastle squad have not been given an indication of when the money will arrive.

Today marks the 19th day since salaries were due, equalling the amount of time Hearts players waited when October’s payments were delayed. On that occasion, manager Paulo Sergio had to intervene to prevent senior players lodging an official complaint with the Scottish Premier League.

Money at UBIG is not readily available at present but Hearts officials believe this gesture is an indication that Vladimir Romanov, the club’s majority shareholder, is intent on paying wages in full as soon as possible.

Sergio believes missing salaries were partly responsible for Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat by St Johnstone. “We are losing focus on our work, that is revealed in games,” he said. “We are thinking during the week about other kinds of problems that everybody knows and we are losing our focus, our quality and our confidence. We are creating chances, that is good and we should put them in the net. We are creating and playing but, at the same time, we are doing stupid things. We are giving chances to our opponents without them doing too much to deserve it.”

The manager criticised Hearts’ defending, admitting his team “lost the game in a very stupid way”. Adding to the manager’s disgruntlement is a calf problem which forced centre-back Andy Webster off at half-time. He now faces a race to be fit for this weekend’s visit to Celtic Park.

Liam Craig’s lob and Dave Mackay’s penalty secured victory for St Johnstone, although Jamie Hamill missed a penalty for Hearts before Mehdi Taouil’s late consolation.

“I’m especially upset because we were very weak in our defensive line, we did not have calmness and confidence to play,” Sergio told the Hearts website.

“In fact, St Johnstone were only in our box two or three times in the whole game. They were in our box twice in the second half.

“We had a lot of chances to score, we didn’t score and we lost the game in a very stupid way. What upset me was the lack of quality and aggression in our defensive line. They put the ball in front and we didn’t attack the ball.”