11 April 2020. The day Vladimir Romanov was vindicated

[Irufushi]

1 hour ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

Romanov >>>>> Budge

it’s not even a contest. 

[Libertarian]

55 minutes ago, Kiwidoug said:

A very unstable genius.  

 

 

Every Russian I have met is a wee bit mad. Wonderful people though,  every one of them. 

[frankblack]

15 minutes ago, **** the SPFL said:

loved Romanov until the end when he did nearly put us out of business oh and disappeared with a briefcase with the proceeds of Craig Gordon's transfer.

 

Not to forget the 7000 season ticket sales money which also disappeared, hence Admin.

[eyesandears]

44 minutes ago, frankblack said:

 

Not to forget the 7000 season ticket sales money which also disappeared, hence Admin.

😂😂😂 yeh so he did. That and the share issue kept the lights on until the end of the season and then we went tits up. Vlad didn't take a penny out the club. In fact quite the opposite, he burned a fortune and gave us some of the best days of our Hearts supporting lives.

[davemclaren]

2 hours ago, Smack said:

How much are the Kremlin paying you? But fine, he got to live quietly and keep his sub or its sail or whatever.

[Maple Leaf]

4 hours ago, No Idle Talk said:

He is a nutcase.

 

I'll take Ann Budge over Vladimir Romanov any day of the week.

 

Both have played a vital role in the survival of our club.

 

Chris Robinson was hell-bent on selling Tynecastle and renting Murrayfield from the SRU for our home games.  That would have killed us, imo, but Vlad stopped it from happening.

 

Vlad ran up our debts to unsustainable levels which forced us into administration.  We would have gone out of business but for Ann Budge.

 

If it hadn't been for Vlad, there would have been no Club for Ann to save.  If it hadn't been for Ann, there would be no Club now.

 

Both of those owners deserve our thanks.

[No Idle Talk]

2 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

Both have played a vital role in the survival of our club.

 

Chris Robinson was hell-bent on selling Tynecastle and renting Murrayfield from the SRU for our home games.  That would have killed us, imo, but Vlad stopped it from happening.

 

Vlad ran up our debts to unsustainable levels which forced us into administration.  We would have gone out of business but for Ann Budge.

 

If it hadn't been for Vlad, there would have been no Club for Ann to save.  If it hadn't been for Ann, there would be no Club now.

 

Both of those owners deserve our thanks.

 

I don't disagree with any of that.

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

3 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

Both have played a vital role in the survival of our club.

 

Chris Robinson was hell-bent on selling Tynecastle and renting Murrayfield from the SRU for our home games.  That would have killed us, imo, but Vlad stopped it from happening.

 

Vlad ran up our debts to unsustainable levels which forced us into administration.  We would have gone out of business but for Ann Budge.

 

If it hadn't been for Vlad, there would have been no Club for Ann to save.  If it hadn't been for Ann, there would be no Club now.

 

Both of those owners deserve our thanks.

The debt when admin occurred was roughly similar to the debt when Robinson and SMG sold to him. The debts he transferred to Ukio and UBIG were what saved us. He had fun on the way too and we won two cups.

 

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

6 hours ago, eyesandears said:

😂😂😂 yeh so he did. That and the share issue kept the lights on until the end of the season and then we went tits up. Vlad didn't take a penny out the club. In fact quite the opposite, he burned a fortune and gave us some of the best days of our Hearts supporting lives.

Indeed. It's amazing that people think there was some bank vault sitting somewhere with season ticket money and a juicy transfer fee. I often wonder how they run their own house.

[Hearts1975]

The most important point is this. For anyone, and I mean anyone who tries to vilify Romanov, for whatever reason, the bottom line is without his involvement with the club we potentially would have had a long long road and a difficult road to recovery 

 

Forget Admin. Before Admin we had debts of over 30 million. Put a lot of that down to the Pieman. He would have killed us if it wasn’t for VR 
 

Fast forward to today - if Romanov didn’t get involved with us, if we didn’t get the CVA through, who the hell would have got involved and cleared all of our outstanding debts at the club ? 

 

I doubt if AB would have even got involved in the first place and I certainly didn’t see anyone else willing to get involved back then 

 

Long live Vladimir ♥️♥️♥️♥️

[Fxxx the SPFL]

4 hours ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

Indeed. It's amazing that people think there was some bank vault sitting somewhere with season ticket money and a juicy transfer fee. I often wonder how they run their own house.

There was GK he did pocket millions, the bulk of the money spent on Hearts during his tenure was from Factory pension funds in Eastern Europe why do you think he is a wanted man in Lithuania. i still loved the time he was here though.

[Governor Tarkin]

7 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

Both have played a vital role in the survival of our club.

 

Chris Robinson was hell-bent on selling Tynecastle and renting Murrayfield from the SRU for our home games.  That would have killed us, imo, but Vlad stopped it from happening.

 

Vlad ran up our debts to unsustainable levels which forced us into administration.  We would have gone out of business but for Ann Budge.

 

If it hadn't been for Vlad, there would have been no Club for Ann to save.  If it hadn't been for Ann, there would be no Club now.

 

Both of those owners deserve our thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by Governor Tarkin

[Poseidon]

10 minutes ago, **** the SPFL said:

There was GK he did pocket millions, the bulk of the money spent on Hearts during his tenure was from Factory pension funds in Eastern Europe why do you think he is a wanted man in Lithuania. i still loved the time he was here though.

Absolute laughable pish

[Ominous]

Romanov is a nutcase that nearly finished us. Ann Budge is a sensible business lady who is running the financial side of the club well. But I have never had a happier time supporting Hearts than when Vlad was in charge( apart from the 98 cup win that was the greatest day). 

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

1 hour ago, **** the SPFL said:

There was GK he did pocket millions, the bulk of the money spent on Hearts during his tenure was from Factory pension funds in Eastern Europe why do you think he is a wanted man in Lithuania. i still loved the time he was here though.

[frankblack]

12 hours ago, eyesandears said:

😂😂😂 yeh so he did. That and the share issue kept the lights on until the end of the season and then we went tits up. Vlad didn't take a penny out the club. In fact quite the opposite, he burned a fortune and gave us some of the best days of our Hearts supporting lives.

 

Ok.  Explain where that money went to and why we weren't paying wages the year before on a number of occasions?

 

We collected at least half to two-thirds of our season ticket money and then it vanished at the same time as Vlad started having issues elsewhere.

 

That left us in deep shit.  Do you seriously think we would take season ticket money if we were already known to be insolvent?

 

6 hours ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

Indeed. It's amazing that people think there was some bank vault sitting somewhere with season ticket money and a juicy transfer fee. I often wonder how they run their own house.

 

Just as well the then owners of the club aren't crooks hiding from extradition.  🤔

[eyesandears]

1 hour ago, frankblack said:

 

Ok.  Explain where that money went to and why we weren't paying wages the year before on a number of occasions?

 

We collected at least half to two-thirds of our season ticket money and then it vanished at the same time as Vlad started having issues elsewhere.

 

That left us in deep shit.  Do you seriously think we would take season ticket money if we were already known to be insolvent?

 

 

Just as well the then owners of the club aren't crooks hiding from extradition.  🤔

Morning Frank. The money generated from our season 7000 ticket sales and the share issue went straight into paying overdue wages and overdue HMRC payments along with paying police, stewards and other matchday essential services which the club no longer had any credit terms for. Don't forget we had a crazily high 132% salary to turnover ratio. Dundee United watch out!! Our money was being used to keep the club alive on a day to day basis and thankfully because we did buy shares and season tickets we managed to get to the end of the season without being relegated. That was crucial to making the club more sellable to a potential buyer than if it had been in the Championship. After that though the admin took so long (51 weeks) due to negotaiations with UKIO and UBIG administrators that we dropped in the following year when Ann came in along with a properly organised FoH to save the day. No doubt that Vlad is a wanted man but he didn't take a penny from Hearts.

[Fxxx the SPFL]

3 hours ago, Poseidon said:

Absolute laughable pish

is it where did the Gordon transfer money go it didn't reduce our debt because he did a share issue did he not

[Unknown user]

3 hours ago, **** the SPFL said:

There was GK he did pocket millions, the bulk of the money spent on Hearts during his tenure was from Factory pension funds in Eastern Europe why do you think he is a wanted man in Lithuania. i still loved the time he was here though.

If you add up what we spent under Romanov then add up what we took in, we spent way more than we made, by millions.

[Poseidon]

16 minutes ago, **** the SPFL said:

is it where did the Gordon transfer money go it didn't reduce our debt because he did a share issue did he not

Wages for Jankauskas, Tall and all the other very highly paid players we managed to acquire 

[Baxfee]

Detest the man - very similar to trump in terms of arrogance and shitting on people. 

[Tasavallan]

5 minutes ago, BarneyBattles said:

 

That's the biggest load of tripe I've ever read on here. Pension funds invest in investment funds which invest (partly) in companies - lots of different companies. If the share price of a company goes down, then so does the value of the investment fund and therefore the value of the pension fund. That was the real story here - sad for the pensioners but you might want to take a closer look at how your own pension works.

 

I'm not an expert on Bosnian law (no doubt someone on here will claim to be😃) but I'd imagine any suspected criminal activity which devalued a company to the detriment of its shareholders would be frowned upon but Vlad is a wanted man in Lithuania because they suspect him of embezzlement from Ukio Bankas, nothing to do with Bosnian pension funds (although I do wish we still had that weeping pensioner smiley - seems to have disappeared). 

 

Correct, BB. Romanov is wanted in Lithuania for embezzlement of funds from Ukio Bankas and its subsidiaries.  As far as I am aware he is not wanted in Bosnia as there is no direct link between him and the Bosnia companies.

[Gards]

52 minutes ago, BarneyBattles said:

 

That's the biggest load of tripe I've ever read on here. Pension funds invest in investment funds which invest (partly) in companies - lots of different companies. If the share price of a company goes down, then so does the value of the investment fund and therefore the value of the pension fund. That was the real story here - sad for the pensioners but you might want to take a closer look at how your own pension works.

 

I'm not an expert on Bosnian law (no doubt someone on here will claim to be😃) but I'd imagine any suspected criminal activity which devalued a company to the detriment of its shareholders would be frowned upon but Vlad is a wanted man in Lithuania because they suspect him of embezzlement from Ukio Bankas, nothing to do with Bosnian pension funds (although I do wish we still had that weeping pensioner smiley - seems to have disappeared). 

Robert Maxwell might have a different view on what to do with pension funds.....

[The Old Tolbooth]

13 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

Both have played a vital role in the survival of our club.

 

Chris Robinson was hell-bent on selling Tynecastle and renting Murrayfield from the SRU for our home games.  That would have killed us, imo, but Vlad stopped it from happening.

 

Vlad ran up our debts to unsustainable levels which forced us into administration.  We would have gone out of business but for Ann Budge.

 

If it hadn't been for Vlad, there would have been no Club for Ann to save.  If it hadn't been for Ann, there would be no Club now.

 

Both of those owners deserve our thanks.

 

This is bang on the money for me, don't forget that Vlad also had the debt for equity schemes which pretty much ended up saving our arses as well, we were used as a football manager project, but it was good fun along the way. 

 

All I see from Ron the con across the road is take take take, there's literally zero give. 

[Fxxx the SPFL]

1 hour ago, BarneyBattles said:

 

That's the biggest load of tripe I've ever read on here. Pension funds invest in investment funds which invest (partly) in companies - lots of different companies. If the share price of a company goes down, then so does the value of the investment fund and therefore the value of the pension fund. That was the real story here - sad for the pensioners but you might want to take a closer look at how your own pension works.

 

I'm not an expert on Bosnian law (no doubt someone on here will claim to be😃) but I'd imagine any suspected criminal activity which devalued a company to the detriment of its shareholders would be frowned upon but Vlad is a wanted man in Lithuania because they suspect him of embezzlement from Ukio Bankas, nothing to do with Bosnian pension funds (although I do wish we still had that weeping pensioner smiley - seems to have disappeared). 

apologies and i bow to your superior knowledge i did beleive that he left these factories and pension funds with zilch i'm sure there was either a news article or documentary around his dealings although i'm probably wrong

[frankblack]

2 hours ago, eyesandears said:

Morning Frank. The money generated from our season 7000 ticket sales and the share issue went straight into paying overdue wages and overdue HMRC payments along with paying police, stewards and other matchday essential services which the club no longer had any credit terms for. Don't forget we had a crazily high 132% salary to turnover ratio. Dundee United watch out!! Our money was being used to keep the club alive on a day to day basis and thankfully because we did buy shares and season tickets we managed to get to the end of the season without being relegated. That was crucial to making the club more sellable to a potential buyer than if it had been in the Championship. After that though the admin took so long (51 weeks) due to negotaiations with UKIO and UBIG administrators that we dropped in the following year when Ann came in along with a properly organised FoH to save the day. No doubt that Vlad is a wanted man but he didn't take a penny from Hearts.

 

Thats a lot of words that doesn't explain an awful lot about his mismanagement of our finances.

 

Whatever way you try and paint it the 7000 season ticket sales were not earmarked for paying debts - that was to cover running costs for the coming season.  It definitely was not budgeted for HMRC bills and overdue wages - no business makes such a budget where their entire running costs for the year are lost in the first week.

 

Everything that came after that to save the club was not credit to Romanov at all.  Romanov came in and had two choices - clear our debts and make us sustainable or try and run us like Man City except without balancing the books.  He chose the latter, which was a ticking timebomb from day 1 before you even look at the batshit crazy way he ran us.

[Last Laff]

17 hours ago, Longbaws said:

1st John Robertson

2nd Vladimir Romanov

3rd Rudi Skacel

 

 

This.

 

I love Vlad.  He saved us when we looked ****ed and took us on an amazing ride.   Screw what anyone else says.  The Stendel of football club owners imo. 

[Last Laff]

Was it middlesboro pre season we had about 600 trialists and first time we seen Rudy and big Jules? 

[Bazzas right boot]

"Spent my last £500k fitting out my submarine" is not something I thought I'd ever hear/ see. 

 

What a lad. 

 

 

[Fxxx the SPFL]

17 minutes ago, BarneyBattles said:

 

Neither the BBC documentary nor the press articles contained anything of substance really. I remember watching the documentary and thinking 'is that it?' and the press stories basically just sensationalised what I said in my previous post - because they know people will remember headlines rather than the actual story.

correct obviously my memory was one of headlines. On another note i wasn't having a go at Vlad loved his time at the club, i do remember the game at Livingston when he travelled with a supporters bus and in the stadium he was in with the supporters and my wife was coming back with a hot drink spied him in the crowd and got a kiss from him (slapper). Next thing i know my mate who was on holiday in Portugal text me to say iv'e just your missus on the TV kissing Romanov crazy times

[eyesandears]

2 hours ago, frankblack said:

 

Thats a lot of words that doesn't explain an awful lot about his mismanagement of our finances.

 

Whatever way you try and paint it the 7000 season ticket sales were not earmarked for paying debts - that was to cover running costs for the coming season.  It definitely was not budgeted for HMRC bills and overdue wages - no business makes such a budget where their entire running costs for the year are lost in the first week.

 

Everything that came after that to save the club was not credit to Romanov at all.  Romanov came in and had two choices - clear our debts and make us sustainable or try and run us like Man City except without balancing the books.  He chose the latter, which was a ticking timebomb from day 1 before you even look at the batshit crazy way he ran us.

You didn't ask about the mismanagement of our finances. You claimed VR had his hands in the til. He did not. 

[Longbaws]

Can we get lifetime JKB bans for those that are spreading vile, unfounded rumours about Mr Romanov please mods?

[frankblack]

14 minutes ago, Longbaws said:

Can we get lifetime JKB bans for those that are spreading vile, unfounded rumours about Mr Romanov please mods?

 

What rumours are worse than he is hiding away in Russia to avoid extradition for?

[frankblack]

32 minutes ago, eyesandears said:

You didn't ask about the mismanagement of our finances. You claimed VR had his hands in the til. He did not. 

 

I am sure plenty in Lithuania who are trying to extradite him would disagree.

 

I've not got an inside view of what happened to make our season ticket income disappear overnight, but I don't accept your attempts to vindicate him.  All I'm saying is that money shouldn't just disappear overnight as it was the club's planned income for the year.  Either they knew they were insolvent before selling season tickets or something else happened.

Edited February 16, 2021 by frankblack

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

44 minutes ago, frankblack said:

 

I am sure plenty in Lithuania who are trying to extradite him would disagree.

 

I've not got an inside view of what happened to make our season ticket income disappear overnight, but I don't accept your attempts to vindicate him.  All I'm saying is that money shouldn't just disappear overnight as it was the club's planned income for the year.  Either they knew they were insolvent before selling season tickets or something else happened.

Simple question. Do you think when season tickets were sold that there were no liabilities carried over from the weeks and months prior?

 

That income basically went on paying wages and bills due, in addition to a tax bill we got landed with from the Kaunas loan system.

[frankblack]

3 minutes ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

Simple question. Do you think when season tickets were sold that there were no liabilities carried over from the weeks and months prior?

 

Not a simple question.  Those liabilities should have already been known and therefore that season ticket money would not meet running costs.

 

3 minutes ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

That income basically went on paying wages and bills due, in addition to a tax bill we got landed with from the Kaunas loan system.

 

Again, that would indicate the club knew it was essentially trading while insolvent.

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

4 minutes ago, frankblack said:

 

Not a simple question.  Those liabilities should have already been known and therefore that season ticket money would not meet running costs.

 

 

Again, that would indicate the club knew it was essentially trading while insolvent.

Which the club had declared for years in the accounts as we were getting supported by our major shareholder, UBIG. All the details are there.

[frankblack]

13 minutes ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

Which the club had declared for years in the accounts as we were getting supported by our major shareholder, UBIG. All the details are there.

 

My point is that it clearly appears that that support from UBIG was clearly budgeted for and it or something vanished, wiping out our income for the coming year.

 

That situation falls solely on Romanov and those he had in charge who failed to manage our liabilities or balance the books.  It was always going to go pop with him running the club as he did from day 1.

[Guest ToqueJambo]

Didn't think I could read any more nonsense than people talking up Stendel over Neilson on the Neilson Out thread, but now people are suggesting Romanov was a better owner than Budge?

 

While both obviously played major roles in saving us, only one literally saved us because of the destructive actions of the other. 

 

Whatever Romanov did to save us, or rather save Tynecastle, it was accidental. He was doing it all for himself. Budge is at least acting out of genuine good intentions for the club.

 

And imagine the seethe if Budge sacked a top of the league manager playing amazing football and replaced him with a convicted sex pest? Or made our managers drop our best players for random reasons?

 

Also, while Romanov talked a good game, only Budge actually took the fight to the SFA/SPFL.

 

He did write better statements though.

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

10 minutes ago, frankblack said:

 

My point is that it clearly appears that that support from UBIG was clearly budgeted for and it or something vanished, wiping out our income for the coming year.

 

That situation falls solely on Romanov and those he had in charge who failed to manage our liabilities or balance the books.  It was always going to go pop with him running the club as he did from day 1.

Vlad turned the tap off in effect when he started taking more of an interest in basketball.

 

And was admin his fault? Yes. However, he bought us 10 years that we wouldn't have had had the Robinson Tynecastle sale happened. At the end, we had Tynecastle, two cups in the trophy cabinet and some of the best players to ever play in maroon. The real frustration with Vlad is that we could have done so much more.

[frankblack]

1 minute ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

Vlad turned the tap off in effect when he started taking more of an interest in basketball.

 

And was admin his fault? Yes. However, he bought us 10 years that we wouldn't have had had the Robinson Tynecastle sale happened. At the end, we had Tynecastle, two cups in the trophy cabinet and some of the best players to ever play in maroon. The real frustration with Vlad is that we could have done so much more.

 

I disagree.

 

Vlad from day one failed to stabilise the club, clear our debts, or balance the books and administration and/or liquidation were not a question of if but when.

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

13 minutes ago, ToqueJambo said:

Didn't think I could read any more nonsense than people talking up Stendel over Neilson on the Neilson Out thread, but now people are suggesting Romanov was a better owner than Budge?

 

While both obviously played major roles in saving us, only one literally saved us because of the destructive actions of the other. 

 

Whatever Romanov did to save us, or rather save Tynecastle, it was accidental. He was doing it all for himself. Budge is at least acting out of genuine good intentions for the club.

 

And imagine the seethe if Budge sacked a top of the league manager playing amazing football and replaced him with a convicted sex pest? Or made our managers drop our best players for random reasons?

 

Also, while Romanov talked a good game, only Budge actually took the fight to the SFA/SPFL.

 

He did write better statements though.

Romanov pissed money up the wall on players. Budge pissed James Anderson and co's money up the wall on a stand that costs went out of control for.

 

Vlad took far too much of an interest in the team. Budge delegates it and takes no accountability for failure.

 

Vlad and his companies put more into HMFC than any other owner in history whereas Budge has been paid back by fans.

 

Vlad won trophies. Budge will win nothing.

 

Budge will hand over a stable company. Vlad didn't.

 

Romanov >>>>>Budge 

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

2 minutes ago, frankblack said:

 

I disagree.

 

Vlad from day one failed to stabilise the club, clear our debts, or balance the books and administration and/or liquidation were not a question of if but when.

And seriously, why would he? How many business people were interested in the basket case that HMFC was when Robinson had his fire sale going?

[Guest ToqueJambo]

12 minutes ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

Romanov pissed money up the wall on players. Budge pissed James Anderson and co's money up the wall on a stand that costs went out of control for.

 

Vlad took far too much of an interest in the team. Budge delegates it and takes no accountability for failure.

 

Vlad and his companies put more into HMFC than any other owner in history whereas Budge has been paid back by fans.

 

Vlad won trophies. Budge will win nothing.

 

Budge will hand over a stable company. Vlad didn't.

 

Romanov >>>>>Budge 

 

 

Mental. Romanov pissed away money we didn't have. If you take the view Budge has pissed similar amounts of money away, at least it was money she knew she had.

[Guest ToqueJambo]

12 minutes ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

And seriously, why would he? How many business people were interested in the basket case that HMFC was when Robinson had his fire sale going?

 

We'll never know but given how late Budge turned up it's not inconceivable to imagine that if things had got as bad under Robinson as they did under Romanov, a Budge type figure and an FoH type fan movement might have sprung up then instead of when it was needed 10 years later.

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

Just now, ToqueJambo said:

 

 

Mental. Romanov pissed away money we didn't have. If you take the view Budge has pissed similar amounts of money away, at least it was money she knew she had.

Money "we" didn't have which was then passed on to a Lithuanian company via debt for equity swaps. Whether the Lithuanian company had the money is a different question.

[Guest ToqueJambo]

Just now, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

Money "we" didn't have which was then passed on to a Lithuanian company via debt for equity swaps. Whether the Lithuanian company had the money is a different question.

 

What do you think the answer is?

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

Just now, ToqueJambo said:

 

We'll never know but given how late Budge turned up it's not inconceivable to imagine that if things had got as bad under Robinson as they did under Romanov, a Budge type figure and an FoH type fan movement might have sprung up then instead of when it was needed 10 years later.

We would have had no stadium. The difference that would have made to HMFC would have been incredible. Think of the slow death of Airdrieonians, who only now exist in reborn form due to buying Clydebank.

 

And when Vlad came in, how many people said when we were signing Rudi et al, giving Hartley his desired contract to ward off Celtic, making Gordon the best paid player in our history etc. etc. that we shouldn't be doing that? No one. Absolutely no one. As I say, why would he? Vlad bought into sport because he enjoyed it and wanted playthings, not because he was some sort of business turnaround expert.

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

1 minute ago, ToqueJambo said:

 

What do you think the answer is?

Pre-financial crash, everyone had the money. How much of a bath he took after 2008 is opaque.

[Guest ToqueJambo]

4 minutes ago, Geoff Kilpatrick said:

Pre-financial crash, everyone had the money. How much of a bath he took after 2008 is opaque.

 

The crash was what ultimately brought him and us down. But he put us into that vulnerable position. Budge on the other hand will probably bring us out of the pandemic in better shape than most clubs in the Premiership. Imagine if Romanov had been in charge during the last year?