Football: ROM PICKS RIX

HEARTS will shock Scottish football by unveiling Graham Rix as their new manager tomorrow.

In an astonishing appointment by Lithuanian owner Vladimir Romanov, Rix, a convicted sex offender, will sign a pounds 250,000- a-year contract that will run until 2007, sources said last night.

The Scottish Sunday Mirror revealed last week that Hearts' first choice, Sir Bobby Robson, rejected the job last Monday, leaving the Tynecastle hierarchy to pursue other targets.

Claudio Ranieri and Ottmar Hitzfeld were both linked with the position vacated by axed George Burley two weeks ago, but Romanov now appears to have found his man.

Sources close to former Portsmouth and Oxford boss Rix say he is delighted to be given the opportunity to get back into football after being out of work since he left Oxford in February. Romanov's explosive running of club affairs has seen the departures of chairman George Foulkes and chief executive Phil Anderton this week.

And, despite Hearts resuming their place at the top of the SPL yesterday with a 3-0 victory over Dundee United, the manager's position at Tynecastle has been labelled 'the job nobody wants'.

Former Arsenal and England midfielder Rix, who had a brief stint at Dundee in 1992, flew up to Edinburgh yesterday to see Hearts in action.

Rix has a good reputation as a coach in some football circles. He spent seven years on the coaching staff at Chelsea and it was during his time at Stamford Bridge that he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for sex offences with a teenage school girl.

Rix, who was 41 at the time, was accused of having sex with the girl at his team's hotel the night before Chelsea played Manchester United.

An investigation was launched in 1998 after the father of the girl went to the police with a complaint against Rix, who was later arrested in September that year.

When he first appeared in court in January 1999, Rix was warned that he faced prison if convicted.

He later pleaded guilty to unlawful sex with the girl and also admitted a second charge of indecently assaulting her.

Despite the charges he was facing, Chelsea stood by their coach and he continued in his role as assistant coach while waiting on the court's verdict.

In March 1999 he was jailed and put on the sex offenders' register for 10 years. On his release six months later, the disgraced coach begged to be allowed to 'rebuild' his life.

As he left Wandsworth Prison, he said in a statement: "The last six months have been extremely difficult."

After being forced out of Chelsea following the appointment of Claudio Ranieri, Rix joined Portsmouth and became their boss in February 2001.

He was only in charge for 13 months before being sacked and replaced by Harry Redknapp, the club's director of football.

Rix had to wait two years for another chance as a manager. He was appointed boss of Oxford United but his reign was shortlived, he was sacked after just eight months.

Hearts refused to comment last night.

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