Kyle blows the whistle on Hearts crisis

Financial guru Kevin Kyle has talked himself out of finding a new club in Scotland.

Fresh from getting his pay-off from terminating his contract with Sevco the injury jinxed striker has revealed the extent of the financial problems that became routine at Hearts.

Kyle joined the Edinburgh club in 2010 from Kilmarnock and quickly discovered that payment of wages and bonuses were down to the mood swings of Vladimir Romanov.

Revealing dressing room secrets is never encouraged in football but that hasn’t stopped Kyle from going into detail about the madhouse finances of  his time at Hearts.

“I remember winning 10 or 11 games on the bounce and we were right in between Celtic and Rangers at the top of the league,” the former Scotland striker told BBC Scotland. “The 12th game we played Celtic at Parkhead and we lost 4-0.

“We were all wondering where our bonuses were and he (Romanov) came in and says: ‘That performance the other night wasn’t good enough, you will get your bonuses when you start playing a bit better’.

“I thought ‘Playing a bit better? We have just won 11 out of 12’.”

“It was just clear then that the money wasn’t there to be paid.”

Going into more detail Kyle added: “They would say they can’t give you bonuses now but they will give you it next month and a wee bit extra for waiting.

“They were always trying to dig money from bits that just weren’t there.

“We didn’t get paid just before Christmas at one point for about four months and that was quite hard, because not every footballer was earning over a £1,000 a week.

“There were players on £500 or even £80-90 a week and they needed the money.”

Liquidation seems to be staring Hearts in the face but like others such as Alex Salmond Kyle can only see a rosy future for the stricken Edinburgh side.

“I’m sure the administrator will make sure the consortium that does come in to take over has got the best interests of the club at heart,” he added.

“We don’t want another owner coming in and doing exactly the same again because I don’t think the fans can put up with much more of that.

“While they are getting 14,000-15,000, as long as it’s run properly it should be sustainable. The problem is it hasn’t been run properly.”