Hearts look to council in search for plot

The club admitted for the first time that the option of moving from Tynecastle had been under consideration "for a year," said director Vitalijus Vasiliauskas who chaired the meeting.

"We started to talk to the council last year about how the council could help Heart of Midlothian to develop," said Vasiliauskas.

The problem, according to the club, is that health and safety regulations due to the nearby whisky distillery and medical factory mean that redeveloping the main stand - the preferred option in the past - could only bring capacity up to a limit of 20,000, meaning the club would face expenditure of 15 million to 20 million to add just 1,500 seats.

Vasiliauskas believes that any scope to develop Tynecastle is "very, very limited" by the safety zone rules and insisted that the regulations could not be challenged as "the distillery is six months older than we are," meaning that the distillery had prior rights in the area.

The club is presently consulting widely on the possible options open to it. Vasiliauskas said: "No decision has been taken and no decision will be taken until after the consultation so that we can find out what is in the minds of our supporters."

Club managing director David Southern stressed that Hearts would need to own any new stadium site. He said: "We must own the site. It's a tough issue but we are insistent that we must be owners."

Later, Southern said the club still had as an option the possibility of moving to a stadium proposed for the Green Belt land to the west of Edinburgh by a company owned by former Rangers FC owner Sir David Murray, but his remarks and those of Vasiliauskas during the agm seems to indicate that Hearts' preferred option is now a new stadium on land currently owned by the council somewhere to the west of Tynecastle.

During questions from the floor, Vasiliauskas was asked if the council was showing an anti-Hearts bias.He replied: "We will see what happens, there's no straight answer to that question."

The shareholder said: "I think you have just answered it." Other shareholders offered to put pressure on the council if the club needed help.

One issue for Hearts is that redeveloping Tynecastle will not solve the club's problem with their pitch which does not meet the standard size imposed by Uefa for European competition.

The problems facing Hearts due to their ageing main stand and 'short' pitch that was laid in Victorian times were stated to the agm by Southern.

He confirmed that while Hearts will be able to play their two qualifying rounds in the Europa League at Tynecastle the club would need to seek a dispensation from Uefa should they reach the group stages.

Afterwards he explained: "The further you go in the tournament, the more facilities are demanded, while there is no question of lengthening the pitch due to the way the Roseburn stand is constructed."

Some positive news reported to the shareholders is that Hearts are slowly bringing down the amount of their turnover that goes on staffing, i.e. players' wages, which presently equals 115 per cent of turnover, down from 126 per cent a year ago, when the target for most clubs was to have wages at 50 per cent of turnover.

Vasiliauskas said the club had reduced its overall costs by 3.5 million but said it would take "four or five years" to reach the target, reducing at 10-15 per cent per year. He said: "We are going very well in terms of reducing our costs." He added that in future, players would be "rewarded for onfield success."

Vasiliauskas also explained that while the club had made a profit of 36,000 - its first since 2000 - Hearts' commercial income had dropped from 3.3 million to 1.86 million, due to the "market situation" and difficult trading conditions in which the number of Hearts shops had reduced from five to two, but he added that this situation would improve as the club was doing "new types of commercial deals."

Pledging the long-term support of owner Vladimir Romanov, who has forgiven 7.9 million worth of Hearts' debts, Vasiliauskas said Romanov's commitment had been shown and that the club did not need to sell players.

Southern added later: "But if we do sell, we will get value for him and there's an absolute pledge to replace him in the squad."

There was praise from the floor for Vasiliauskas, Southern, fellow director Sergei Fedotovas, and Romanov himself, though one shareholder wanted to know why the club had withdrawn captain Marius Zaliukas and goalkeeper Marian Kello from matches, which apparently took place at the owner's behest.

"I will pass these remarks to Mr Romanov" said an enigmatic Vasiliauskas.