Hearts hit by cash-flow crisis as six still unpaid

THE extent of Hearts' cash-flow problems became clearer last night when it emerged that up to six leading players did not receive their delayed weekly wages on Monday.

Although a club statement four days ago asserted that the players "have been paid" and a Hearts spokesman blamed the delayed payment on "a blip," it has now become apparent that some of the leading earners did not receive their money. Those players, who include Bruno Aguiar and Christos Karipidis, were instead asked by Anatoly Korobchka, Hearts' sport director, to agree a deferred payment, and apparently agreed.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the club refused to add to Monday's statement. There was no attempt, however, to stick to the assertion that the financial difficulties were merely the result of some minor technical hitch.

The unpaid players are thought to have been assured that they would receive their delayed payments as soon as possible. The best-case scenario is that today they get paid for this week and for last, and that the rest of the playing staff receive their own weekly pay as usual.

Last week's delay was the second time this season that Hearts' players have not been paid on time. The first time it happened, in September, the club blamed "a glitch," and a spokeswoman for Ukio Bankas Investment Group (Ubig), Hearts' parent company, denied the suggestion that there was a cash-flow problem.

Instead, the implication was that the problem had been caused by human error.

Among those inclined to an optimistic outlook, it was suggested that the non-payment could have been caused by some of the technical difficulties which can crop up when money is transferred from one country to another.

It is now plain, however, that the roots of the problem lie with Ubig, the group in which the Kaunas-based businessman Vladimir Romanov has a controlling interest. Until recently, Hearts paid their employees through the current account they held with HBOS. Over the past few weeks that practice has stopped, and staff have been paid direct from Lithuania.

The former Hearts chairman George Foulkes, who had previously accepted that the non-payments might have been caused by nothing more than a hitch, agreed last night that the problem could be more complex than previously admitted. "If it is correct that the cause is a cash-flow problem, then we should be really worried," he said.