Hearts majority shareholder Vladimir Romanov has launched a blistering attack on former manager George Burley, sacked chief executive Phil Anderton and former chairman George Foulkes.
Burley left Tynecastle in October after taking the club to the top of the Bank of Scotland Premier League.
The former Scotland international was followed out of the door by Anderton, who was axed by the Lithuanian, before Foulkes resigned in protest.
But the Jambos chief insists the club would have been "buried" if they had continued at the club.
Speaking on the BBC's Frontline Scotland programme, Romanov said: "I gave these people full control to direct the club and, in one year, there was no result, not even a thought as to where we were going.
"Maybe I could have coped with the management to the end of the season ... but they didn't have the elementary human qualities.
"Each day they turned up at the club it was doing harm.
"I fear that if we had continued with these people then all my ideas would have been buried."
