Hearts achieve significant milestone within six-month period.

Heart of Midlothian FC is pleased to announce that it has settled all outstanding administration debts owed to its players.

The process of clearing ‘football debt’ upon exiting administration can take up to two years but the club is delighted to have achieved this significant milestone within a six-month period.

The club has now fully paid all salaries due from the Romanov regime prior to administration and to the five players made redundant, including John Sutton and Andrew Driver.

A Hearts spokesperson said: “Settling the football debt was viewed as a priority by the new owner and the club worked closely with the PFA Scotland to make it happen as quickly as possible and we appreciated their co-operation in acting as a liaison between us and their members.”

Welcoming the development, PFA Scotland chief executive Fraser Wishart said: “We’re delighted to hear our members have received all the outstanding monies owed to them.

“Hearts have been great to deal with and settled these debts very quickly. Ann Budge and her team have dealt with the matter in a courteous and professional manner which has led to these debts being settled in a short period of time.

“As a union we have fought hard to ensure that monies owed to our members are viewed in the same way as monies owed to other clubs, i.e. what is commonly known as ‘football debt’.

“There is no provision within the standard player’s contract to allow for unilateral termination by a club using the administration process and therefore terminating a player’s contract in this way is viewed as an ordinary wrongful breach of contract.

“In recent administrations our members at Dundee and Dunfermline have also had monies owed to them paid as part of the CVA and purchase agreement.”