Hearts and Tynecastle, in particular, are the last remaining pillars in Romanov's sporting dynasty
Stewart Fisher
Sports Writer
Thursday 7 March 2013

HEARTS swear it is business as usual with Vladimir Romanov but a worrying accumulation of evidence exists to the contrary.

The collapse of Ukio Bankas may have cost Romanov his entire £250m fortune, but it should also be remembered that the fall of his empire has strewn a trail of debris across the continent.

Lithuanian football champions FBK Kaunas and his Belarusian club MTZ-Ripo Minsk (latterly Partisan Minsk) are both effectively defunct; his more recent basketball plaything Zalgiris Kaunas is now thought to be operated by UBIG – the investment arm of Ukio Bankas, whose board Romanov and Sergejus Fedotovas left this week – leaving the Tynecastle club, where Fedotovas remains a director, as the only pillar still standing.

"I really don't know what will happen with Hearts in the future," said Vidas Rastevis, editor of the Lithuanian football weekly. "I know just one thing, that in Lithuania right now he is called 'clubs murderer'. He closed his club in Belarus, he bankrupted FBK in Lithuania, Zalgiris Kaunas is also under question and we don't know what will happen with Hearts."

The demise of FBK was remarkable for those who watched the side dominate the A-Lyga title between 1999 and 2007, reaching a high watermark when scalping Rangers in the 2008/09 Champions League qualifying campaign.

But when the incestuous relationship Mr Romanov enjoyed with the Lithuanian Football Federation hit the rocks, what followed was the financial equivalent of picking up his ball and walking away. Once-proud Kaunas are nowhere to be seen among the nine teams who will populate the Lithuanian top flight when it kicks off this weekend.

A similar fate has befallen Partizan Minsk in Belarus. Those who inherited the shell of the club which won the Belarusian Cup twice and had a few third-place finishes now find themselves pluckily fighting their way up the local Minsk leagues and trying to reclaim their licence to play in the top two Belarusian divisions after Romanov withdrew at a stroke during 2012.

Basketball is big business in Lithuania – the national team have won Olympic bronze three times and lost by just five points to the USA dream team at London 2012 – and it had been thought that Romanov's lack of interest in Kaunas and Minsk was merely down to a change of sporting preference. Zalgiris have an ULEB A licence and play in the Euroleague top 16 each season, have a state-of-the-art 16,000 home in the Zalgirio Arena, a Spanish coach in Joan Plaza and no shortage of foreign stars. But Romanov quietly left the board on the last day of February – a fortnight after the collapse of UKIO Bankas – speaking of passing his shares to Lithuania's basketball veterans, a transaction which did not take place with ownership of the club now believed to have passed to UBIG.

So where does this leave Hearts and their fans? Hoping for the best, but fearing the worst. Some estimates have Romanov's personal fortune at £42m, but his liabilities in the region of £58m. "Hearts are maybe the only one investment in sports that Romanov has left so I don't think they will go bankrupt, I think he will try to sell Hearts and keep them alive for as long as that takes," said Rastevis. "Maybe he feels he can get some money from Hearts."

How he does this remains unclear, however. The club have debts of £24m and although there was a ferocity to the strength of denials refuting administration earlier this week, cash flow is clearly a major problem.

The floating charge over Tynecastle is thought to have passed, along with the rest of UKIO Bankas' assets to the state-owned Siauliu Bankas, but realising that sum could be problematic, as Edinburgh City Council are thought to have imposed conditions on the sale of the ground since the days when Chris Robinson, the one-time chief executive, tried to do likewise in 2004.

At the eye of the storm, the man himself remains as inscrutable as ever. He has talked of becoming a taxi driver, and writing his own version of Mein Kampf should he go to jail over it all. One thing is for sure: it is a far cry from those three-year plans to bring the Champions League trophy to his newly constructed super stadium in Gorgie.

Taken from the Herald