The match “Tom” - CSKA, held last weekend, raised a real wave of high-profile statements among the players of the Russian Premier League. Egor Titov, Andrey Arshavin, Vladimir Bystrov and Dmitry Loskov allegorically accused CSKA of unfair play. Lacking direct evidence, they refer to various indirect reasons - ambiguous refereeing in CSKA matches and suspicious bets from Russian bookmakers. Moreover, foreign players do not fundamentally accept bets on Russian matches.
According to unofficial information, an internal investigation of the outcome of the match “Tom” - CSKA was launched. The initiator of this investigation was the governor of the Tomsk region Viktor Kress. As a source in the Kress administration told Gazeta.ru, there is "reason to believe that the match was falsified." Under the blow of this investigation may be both the head coach of the team Valery Petrakov, and some players who are facing a transfer. Thus, Victor Kress became the fifth right-handed man in Tomsk history.
The Tomsk team really plays at home more than confidently. Before the match with CSKA in the current championship, Tom did not concede in any match of the season in their native walls. CSKA before Tomsk made a long flight from Portugal, where he played a hard starting match in the Champions League. The match in Tomsk caused a huge stir among the fans who came to the match from all over Siberia. Nevertheless, it was they who chanted “Shame” in the last 10 minutes of the match, marveling at how Tom was limp giving away points to the Moscow club.
Governor Kress is known for his reverent attitude towards Tomi. At one time, when Tom missed Kuban into the Premier League, local fans who were familiar with the technologies of the first league tearfully asked the governor to simply “buy” the necessary games. To which the governor’s administration responded that “Tom” plays “honest football, so she has real fans who, coming to the stadium, know that they will witness the game, and not a theatrical show with a well-known ending”.
Approaching the final of the championship of Russia increases the number of scandals that arise around the results of the games. It is obvious that fanning the conflict around CSKA is beneficial for competitors of the army team, who want to prevent the army team from coming off the standings due to psychological pressure. Admittedly, this gives results. First, CSKA president Evgeny Giner on the official website, and then team captain Sergei Ignashevich in an interview with Sport-Express made loud statements to the “prosecutors”, the main essence of which is that the army team was “stabbed in the back”. But soon Ignashevich will meet with Titov and Arshavin in the Russian team.
This situation provides for two possible scenarios:
1. Hypothetical culprits (in other words, “switchmen”) will be found and punished. In 2004, after the Dynamo - Shinnik match, Sergey Grishin and Alexander Kulchiy were expelled from the Yaroslavl team, who were accused of passing the game. By the way, Kulchy is now the main player of Tom. At that time, it was the governor of the Yaroslavl region who initiated the investigation and punishment of the players after a dubious match. Will Kress have the courage to repeat the Yaroslavl experience?
2. Gradually, the degree of conflict will go down, and after a few rounds no one will even remember about it. Moreover, if CSKA confidently beat Lokomotiv and rushed to the second league title in a row.
It is difficult to believe in the likelihood of the development of events in the third, “Italian” option, because there simply cannot be found a suitable dock in Russia.
Ivan MAKAROV