Hearts to finally pay wages today

HEARTS are confident they will finally be able to pay the delayed salaries of a small number of senior players and manager John McGlynn today.

The club had said on Friday that they would have the outstanding sums in their employees’ accounts by later that day but it is understood that, while the money was found, they were unable to process payments on time.

“It will be sorted tomorrow,” McGlynn said yesterday after his team beat Motherwell 1-0 at home thanks to a first-half goal from Danny Grainger.

“I don’t think you saw the players going begging round the stands today. There wasn’t an issue at any time.”

There is an issue as far as the SPL is concerned, however. The governing body has already imposed a transfer ban on Hearts as a result of the club’s failure to pay its September wages on time and a disciplinary sub-committee will meet today to discuss that breach of the league’s new financial rules. There will also, in time, be a further hearing into this month’s failure, with stiffer penalties possibly being applied.

The salaries expected to be paid today had originally been due last Monday, when the rest of the playing and coaching staff received their money. The club then told those left waiting that it would resolve the issue on Friday – when McGlynn said at Riccarton that he and the players would be “paid by the end of play today”.

Hearts had been as good as their word in previous months when they let it be known the matter was about to be resolved. But, on this occasion, club staff were incommunicado for the rest of the day, and there was no word about the subject on the club’s website. It later transpired that failure to comply with the club’s own promise was the reason for the silence.