Hearts avoid disciplinary action on late pay by obeying SPL order

By STUART BATHGATE
Published on Thursday 12 January 2012 12:33

HEARTS have avoided disciplinary action from the Scottish Premier League after meeting the conditions laid down last week over payments to players.

The SPL ruled at a meeting on 4 January that the Tynecastle club had a week to pay playing staff their overdue December salaries, along with interest for that month and on the previous two months’ pay, which was also paid late. Although the league was last night still awaiting formal confirmation from lawyers that everything had been done, an SPL spokesperson said they were content that their conditions had been met.

“Everything is up to date, including the interest payments,” the spokesperson said. “Everything is in order.”

Hearts paid the overdue salaries last Wednesday within hours of being given the ultimatum by the SPL, although they insisted then that the two events were coincidental. They said that they had always intended to pay the players once they had received the first part of Eggert Jonsson’s transfer fee from Wolves and that the staff had known by the turn of the year that the money would be forthcoming last week.

Hearts would not specify when the interest on the late salaries was paid or how much it was. However, a spokesman for the Tynecastle club said the sum had been negligible.

Attention now turns to Monday 16 January, the date when the Hearts players are next due to be paid. In its announcement last week, the SPL said that the club had to pay staff on time in future in order to avoid disciplinary action. The SPL spokesperson reiterated that, yesterday, saying: “The January salaries are to be paid on time on the 16th.”

After refusing to intervene during the first two months in which the Hearts players were not paid on time, the SPL got involved after some of the players lodged an official complaint through their union, PFA Scotland. The players had previously been reluctant to do so lest they be victimised by club owner Vladimir Romanov.

It remains unclear what action the SPL proposes to take if Hearts fall behind in their salary payments again. “I am not going to speculate about what might ultimately be the outcome in the event that any of those orders are not met in full,” SPL chief executive Neil Doncaster said last week. “That would then be the subject of a separate process and I wouldn’t want to predict what the outcome could be.

“We’ve made very clear orders about what needs to be paid and by when. And in the event of any of those orders not being met in full, then that would come back to the SPL board.”

Greek club PAOK Salonika have been fined by Uefa after failing to pay their employees – and warned they could be banned from European competition if they repeat the offence. Uefa said its disciplinary committee had fined PAOK €250,000 (£207,250), of which €200,000 is suspended for three years, for breaching club licensing rules.

In addition, Paok received a ban from one Uefa competition for which they qualify over the next three seasons. That ban is also suspended, and does not affect this season, in which PAOK have reached the last 32 of the Europa League, where they will face Udinese.

“PAOK must prove that, by June 30, 2012, they have no outstanding overdue financial obligations towards employees, tax authorities, social security institutions or other clubs arising from transfer agreements incurred before 30 June 2012,” Uefa added.

Former Leicester City and Greece midfielder Theodoros Zagorakis has helped rescue the club from collapse since taking over as president in 2007, but the twice national champions have struggled to make ends meet during the financial crisis which has gripped Greece.

It emerged earlier this week that Uefa’s licencing rules could also affect Rangers if the delay in publishing audited annual accounts is extended beyond the end of March. Rangers, whose shares have been suspended from the Plus stock exchange, are still confident of finalising an audit over the next few weeks.

Taken from the Scotsman