HEARTS captain Christophe Berra yesterday dismissed as nonsense a claim that the club's players had threatened to strike if they were not paid by Friday. The Hearts squad have still not received their wages from last week, but the centre-half insisted that he and his colleagues had trained as normal and had not contemplated any form of action against their employers.
"I don't know where the story came from, but nothing has been said by the players," Berra told the club's official website,
www.heartsfc.co.uk.
"We know that if we are successful as a team that can only be good for us as individuals in our career. I can promise our supporters that we are totally committed to Hearts and this weekend's game."
Berra's reaction came as the club insisted they had now overcome the "technical hitch" which prevented payment last week. The nature of the "problem", which has also delayed the payment of salaries to backroom staff, has yet to be explained, but the official word on the website was that the funds had now been "processed".
"Payment to staff and players has now been processed as planned and a similar situation is highly unlikely to arise again in the future," the statement read. "The minor error that occurred has not affected the running of the club in any way. All players and staff are training and working at the club as normal."
Hearts director Sergejus Fedotovas, a trusted lieutenant of club owner Vladimir Romanov, also insisted that the problem had been rectified. "I can tell you there is no wages problem," he said. "There was a temporary delay due to a technical reason. I am confident there is no salary issue here."
The "processing" of wages and salaries is understood to mean that the funds have now been lodged in the club's current account with the Halifax Bank of Scotland. Hearts believe the money will be paid out of that account into their employees' bank accounts tomorrow, thus observing the timescale they announced on Tuesday.
Fraser Wishart, the chief executive of PFA Scotland, expressed confidence in the club's explanation. "I'm comfortable with what I've been told by the club," he said yesterday. "We believe it's genuinely a technical hitch, and we're sure the players will be paid on Friday."
Campbell Ogilvie, Hearts' managing director, has briefed Wishart on the problem. Without giving an explanation of the "technical hitch", he appears to have been able to offer sufficient information to convince the former Hearts player that the matter will soon be satisfactorily resolved.
The full article contains 437 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
