Hearts ask fans to pay tax bill

The financial crisis at Hearts - who failed to pay their players again last month - has surely reached its penultimate stage before they go bust.  They face a tax bill of £1.75m and have asked their supporters to cough up through buying £100 or more of their worthless shares.

Despite claims of cost cutting director Sergejus Fedotovas - one of the Russian/Lithuanians running the club under the ownership of Vladimir Romanov - admitted they were still spending much more than their income.  He told the BBC "The cost of the squad that won silverware last season is £8m and our income is just short of £7m".  And this excludes non-wage running costs which were running at a further £8m in their last set of accounts - now nearly two years out of date.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the behaviour of the owners of Hearts has been to deliberately cheat - by spending money they didn't have and had no realistic way of earning - so cheating the taxman and the rest of Scottish football.  Exactly like Glasgow Rangers.  Given the SFA are looking at stripping the now defunct Rangers of some of their titles won while cheating - will they do the same for the two Scottish cups Hearts won under the now ill fated Romanove regime?

Hearts face end game

Scottish Premier League football club Hearts face a fight for their existence as owner Vladimir Romanov vows to put the club - along with two other East European teams - up for sale. With the club mired in more than £30 million debt and the players failing to be paid on time for the second month in a row it is clear major cash flow problems exist in the Romanov empire.

The prospects of a quick sale look remote and with Romanov desperate to maximuise whatever return he can on his investment Hearts fans ought to be very concerned for the very existence of their club. The only asset the club can point to is the ground - which even in these economically difficult times is still worth several million and its sale would allow Romanov to cut his losses.

But the most bizarre thing about the announcement is Romanov's statement that he wishes to leave football and go into the theatre. And it's all at the start of the pantomime season...

Now Lithuanian claims for bail out at G20 in Cannes

News just in from Hibs.net that Hearts owner - Lithuanian national Vladimir Romanov has been spotted asking for a handout at Cannes. Yesterday Hearts were forced to pay half a million tax (on the threat of being wound up by the Revenue), told their highest paid players to look for new jobs and still failed to pay the first team. Ukio Bank (also owned by Romanov) was marked down by the markets as a result of its Greek exposure.