St Johnstone chairman Steve Brown has expressed his sadness at the predicament Hearts find themselves in, and stressed that it was the Edinburgh club’s fans that he really felt sorry for.
He said: “It is another sad day for Scottish football. It has been bubbling along now for years but to have the third biggest club in Scotland in the predicament they are in is extremely messy.
“With Lithuanian banks and other individuals involved, there isn’t a clear shareholding, so I am not sure how it is going to get resolved, probably not any time soon I would think.
“I am a football supporter and I am really saddened by it. It is just not good for the game. We are no different from any other football club and Tommy (Wright) may have his eye on one or two of their players.
“But going back to the actual club, it is always the supporters who suffer. They go there week in week out only to have individuals running their club into the ground. So you have to feel sorry for them.
“They pay for their season tickets or their gate money, follow their club home and away but now it looks as if Hearts are on the brink. I would like to think they would get out of administration, but I do worry it might go beyond that.
“From our point of view, we have never believed that we could buy success.
“If you look at this season, with us, Inverness and Ross County in the top six, there were clubs below us with far bigger budgets so it doesn’t ring true that you have to spend copious amounts of money to have success.
“Every club can run themselves any way they want but I think it does help if you have like my family an affinity not just to St Johnstone but to the city of Perth. I genuinely think it helps.
“At times it does get in the way because of emotions but I think if you are going to run a club, you need to have that affinity as you can relate to supporters and what it means.”