Jul 28 2008
Jambos Behaving Badly; Hit With Record Fine
Hearts have been handed a record £30,000 fine from the Scottish FA for player indiscipline. It is the fourth consecutive time that the Edinburgh club have been censured by Scottish Football’s governing body.
They Tynecastle side have been stung with a £30,000 fine plus a further £10,000 penalty should the players’ indiscipline fail to improve before January 2009. Hearts players were issued with nine red cards and 92 cautions last season.
Last year, Hearts were fined £20,000 for the same series of offences by their players and have declined to comment on the latest fine. In all, 18 clubs were fined for the poor behaviour of their players and Hearts’ Edinburgh rivals, Hibernian were on the wrong side of a £10,000 sanction for their 10 red and 76 yellow cards accumulated last season.
A further six clubs receiving official warnings, with Scottish Division One sides Dundee and Albion Rovers among the clubs warned about their future disciplinary records.
The SFA’s disciplinary committee commended a number of clubs for their “satisfactory standard of discipline” last season including Aberdeen, Falkirk, Morton, Brechin City, Raith Rovers and East Fife.
New Hearts manager Csaba Laszlo has vowed to get tough with the squad at Tynecastle and has accused club owner, Lithuanian banker, Vladimir Romanov, of rewarding ‘lazy players’.
The 44-year-old former Uganda boss, who has succeeded Stevie Frail in the Tynecastle hotseat said: “I have come to a club where I have met a lot of nice people,” he said. “Now I would like to change this. I want people who are hungry for success.
“Mr Romanov has made a big mistake and the mistake is he has given these people a very nice life. And a lot of these people - not all - are lazy.
“They are lazy. I have said to Mr Romanov we must change this.”
The Romanov regime has seen several managers come and go, while highly-paid players like Mauricio Pinilla, Mirsad Beslija, Juho Makela and Jose Goncalves have failed to make an impact, and Laszlo has hinted in recent days that he will be looking to trim down the large squad he inherited of dead wood while also bringing in players of his own.
