Save our Hearts chief says turmoil could spark new fans' campaign

ONE of the founding members of Save our Hearts today warned Vladimir Romanov that he is just weeks away from sparking a new fans' campaign to force sweeping changes at the club.

However, Ian MacLeod insisted that club owner Romanov can still rescue his reputation – and the club – if he acts quickly.

Interim head coach Stephen Frail was placed on gardening leave by Anatoli Korobochka on Wednesday and today Hearts' No.1 target to take over as manager, Vladimir Weiss, ruled himself out of the running by accepting the position of Slovakian national manager.

That leaves Hearts back at square one with just a few weeks until the start of the new SPL season, with no new signings on the horizon and Christophe Berra and Christian Nade at the centre of speculation they are about to quit Tynecastle.

And MacLeod fears that the Jambos will play to half-empty stadiums this season if steps are not taken to stabilise the club. He said: "It's a completely different situation to the last Save our Hearts campaign because it was all about raising cash to buy shares and oust Chris Robinson.

"Any new campaign would be different because of the rising debt and the fact that there is no real diversity in shareholders now, Romanov owns the vast majority of them.

"But I think that if things don't improve then people will vote with their feet and the team will be playing to half-empty stadiums. If things continue the way that they are then we are only a matter of weeks away from people saying that enough is enough. I have spoken to some of the other members of the previous campaign and, although we don't want it to take over our lives like it did before, the tide is definitely turning.

"The frustrating thing is that Romanov has the funding to turn this around and the problem is that fans have seen what potential the club has.

"We won the Scottish Cup and qualified for the Champions League, we want to get back to that again."

He added: "The transfer window is open, everyone else seems to be making signings, but all we seem to be interested in is allowing players to leave. No-one seems to be coming in and I think that it is pretty obvious that's because of the current situation.

"Last season was a disaster and it was blamed mainly on the fact that we had had a poor pre-season. It seems that we are just going down the same route again."

Weiss becomes the second candidate to turn down a move to Tynecastle after Motherwell manager Mark McGhee rejected the club's advances in favour of remaining at Fir Park earlier this month.

Former Artmedia Bratislava boss Weiss had declared publicly his interest in a move to the Jambos but failed to get the assurances he was looking for on team selection and transfers and has replaced Jan Kocian as the Slovakia boss.

Stanislav Strapek, Vice-President of the Slovakian Football Association, said: "We considered three or four other candidates but Vladimir Weiss was always our No.1 choice."