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HEARTS owner Vladimir Romanov last night blamed his side's heavy Champions League defeat against AEK Athens on "the biased West Coast media".

Speaking after the humiliating 3-0 defeat, the Russian-born businessmen drew attention to the controversial booking of Hearts midfielder Julien Brellier for wearing jewellery: "I personally saw Jim Traynor of the Daily Record wrestle Julien Brellier to the ground and pierce a small stud through his ear. Then Graham Spiers of the Herald and someone from the Sun forcibly decorated him with a diamond tiara, a St Christopher medallion, a delightful garnet and pearl bracelet, one of Paul Hartley's thongs and a Prince Albert. They then pushed him back onto the pitch.

"Yet when I look at the television pictures taken by the Glasgow BBC these disgraceful scenes have been edited out."

Mr Romanov also insisted that "technical trickery" made it look like Brellier had led with an elbow when he was booked for a second time. "In fact, the tape was run backwards by the sinister state-run broadcaster to discredit us. What happened was that Julien picked the Greek player up and helped him on his way.

"But do you read about that in the papers? No."

He then added that Hearts had indeed won the tie "a million to nil" and that "crude photomanipulation" had been used to deceived the Scottish public. "These tricks have been used to hide the fact that Hearts also won the Scottish league last year and the UEFA Cup and the Copa America and the Nobel Prize for Literature."

The Hearts head coach Valdas Ivanauskas also took the opportunity to refute claims he was a mere puppet of the owner. Sitting beside Mr Romanov, he repeatedly insisted: "What he said."

In a wide ranging interview, Mr Romanov refused to comment on rumours that the submarine he served on during the cold war, K-19, carried nuclear weapons targeted at Edinburgh. For reasons of "national security" he also refused to confirm or deny that the "ground zero" for an attack on the Scottish capital was Tynecastle Stadium.

However he did not deny saying: "What the glorious Soviet Navy failed to do with nuclear missiles, I shall do with flats."