Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov told RIA Novosti on Friday that his club in Belarus has been excluded from the Top League because the oligarch refused to keep bankrolling the team.
Romanov put Hearts up for sale in November along with Belarus' Partizan Minsk and Lithuanian side FK Kaunas, saying he wanted to leave the football business and buy a theater.
“They threw [Partizan] out, of course, because of the lack of money," Romanov told RIA Novosti. "I don’t intend to keep financing the club. I put 20 million litas ($7.6 million) into it. That’s enough."
Formerly known as MTZ-Ripo, Partizan won two Belarusian Cup titles, in 2005 and 2008, and was sometimes used by Romanov as a feeder club for Hearts.
Romanov said Minsk Mayor Nikolai Ladutenko, whose City Hall has 25 percent stake in the club after investing $5.3 million, could step in to save the side.
"There’s a government, let them try without me,” he said.
The federation excluded Partizan on Friday, reducing the Top League to 11 teams, after the club failed to make the licensing deadline Tuesday.
Partizan chief executive Lyudas Rumbutis told Belarusian website Pressbol earlier this week that their efforts to sell the club had been in vain.
“There was hope for the Russian company Gazprom, but that collapsed. The Minsk city council tried to help us, but that didn’t work out either.”
Rumbutis said that Partizan could only continue as an amateur side.
