The Edinburgh football club Hearts, which is facing a battle for financial survival, has failed to pay their players on time and have been banned from making new signings.
Hearts invited offers for all their players late this week, saying they urgently needed funds to keep going over the off-season when there was no matchday income.
Hearts, who have 25 million pounds of debt, have stumbled from one crisis to another over recent months, while Scottish football, long a poor relation compared to the English Premier League, has struggled to adjust after the collapse of former champions Rangers last year under a pile of debt.
Rangers had to relaunch from the fourth tier of the Scottish game and were promoted at the end of last season.
The Scottish Premier League has told Hearts that it will not give a bail-out for the Jambos, who have also been hit hard by the liquidation in Lithuania of a company formerly controlled by its majority shareholder.
Hearts are also facing the threat of a winding-up order over a 100,000 pound tax bill, despite most of the money owed having been repaid.
