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"V. Romanov's revolution in Edinburgh gains momentum - a businessman from Lithuania acquired shares of the club from former CEO C. Robinson, increasing his stake to 29.9 percent and becoming the largest shareholder of the club, the official "Hearts" website announces that the club's management has been changed.
Romanov appointed close associates from his circle working in the Ukio Bank he controls to the club's management - recently a businessman representing him in Scotland, Sergei Fedotovas, became the CEO, and the positions of his deputies were assigned to the president of the Lithuanian Football Federation, Liutauras Varanavicius, and Roman, Vladimir Romanov's son.
It is possible that Lithuanians have taken these positions only temporarily, but 29-year-old Fedotovas was pleased with the result: "This is a very important day for me. For 9 months I have been constantly involved in these matters, and I am happy that I have finally achieved the result."
The new club management has ambitious plans for the future - to break the dominance of Glasgow clubs in Scotland and establish themselves among the leaders, although large sums of money are not promised immediately to achieve this goal.
"In Scotland, we want to challenge the Glasgow clubs. Of course, this will not be achieved in the next 12 months, but maybe in three, four, or five years. For this, we need high-level players," said Fedotovas. "Money is not the problem, the most important thing is the skill of the player, but we will not make the same mistake as other clubs, investing a lot of money in a player hoping to achieve good results in one season, and then ending up on the brink of bankruptcy."
Meanwhile, Lithuanian Football Federation president L. Varanavicius, who supports these future plans, despite the fact that three Lithuanians already play in the "Hearts" team, stated that the core of the team should consist of Scots.
"We want 'Hearts' to become a symbol of Scottish football. Now, when we talk about Scottish football, we first think of 'Celtic' or 'Rangers,' but I think 'Hearts' should be on par with them, as the club is from the capital Edinburgh," said Varanavicius. "In our opinion, the core of the team should consist of local players. We have an academy to discover them and we also have 4 players from the national team, they should be the future basis, while to improve the quality of the team, we can also acquire foreign players."
The new club leaders also confirmed that they are satisfied with the work of the team's coach John Robertson, and 35-year-old Varanavicius also explained the functions of the club's sports director, Anatoliy Byshovets.
"I want to state this clearly - Byshovets works more like a head scout. We need to be better beyond the field, and Byshovets will help find players. He will search for them not only in Eastern Europe but everywhere else," said Varanavicius, after a press conference going to Geneva to deal with UEFA matters."
