The scandal over refereeing by Pavel Kulalaev of the match “Tom” - “Spartak” goes to a new level. At the end of last week, the executive committee of the Russian Football Union (RFU) made an unprecedented decision - to create a special commission that will study the work of the referee . The leaders of Russian football considered that the referee was not just mistaken - his actions could be the result of bias. Izvestia tried to find out how the investigators of the special commission are going to rely on and what evidence.
Previously, the verdict of the expert judges commission (ESC) was enough to evaluate the actions of any arbitrator. If he said that the referee worked unsatisfactorily, the College of Football Referees (CFA) excommunicated him for a certain period of time. So at first it was this time. ESC acknowledged that Kulalaev’s wrong decisions affected the outcome of the match in Tomsk, and the 32-year-old referee was not included in the list to serve the matches of the first division.
However, the leadership of Spartak, which considers itself to be affected by the actions of the arbitrator, did not accept such a decision. It insists that poor refereeing could be the result of pressure on arbitrators by certain "interested parties." Statements of the red and white pushed the RFU to create a special commission, which at some other time could be called emergency. And the president of the Russian Football Union, Vitaly Mutko, even admitted the possibility of using the “Italian version”, that is, conducting a comprehensive judicial investigation similar to the one that revealed the scale of football corruption in the Apennines last spring.
“Five people were part of our special commission,” Nikita Simonyan, the first vice president of the RFU, who headed it, told Izvestia. “They are all employees of the football union, including representatives of our security service and the legal department. I want to emphasize that this is a purely football investigation - that is, law enforcement agencies will not be involved in the work of the commission. Representatives of Spartak announced their intention to sue arbitrator Kulalaev for trial. But so far, no one has argued about his bias b characterizing ".
According to Simonyan, the commission is going to listen in detail to all interested parties. “We expect to hear evidence from Spartak’s CEO Sergey Shavlo that can explain what motivated the referee in that match,” says the RFU Vice President. “Now we are told that someone threatened the judge before the game or during the break, we have No, at least the match delegate Rudolf Khodeyev didn’t say anything about this, in the next few days we’ll hear the opinions of representatives of Tom’s, the inspection committee, and the arbitrators themselves. The President of the RFU gave us 10 days to hear it. business earlier - until the end of this ate. "
What are the consequences of the conclusion of a special commission of the RFU, now it makes no sense to predict - there have been no precedents. But if, nevertheless, a conclusion is made about Kulalaev’s bias, then the sanctions should concern not only him, but also those people or structures that influenced the arbitrator. But can the special commission be able to fully understand the situation in its "purely football investigation"? After all, the case of last year’s threats against arbitrator Valentin Ivanov revealed that people from outside the world of sports were not involved in them. Khalid Ragimov, the customer of those threats, admitted in court that he did this at the request of "respected people."
"The state is such that ... you yourself understand"
The arbiter Pavel Kulalaev told Izvestia that he hadn’t talked with the commission members yet: “I can’t say anything about this commission yet. They should call me in the near future, ask for information, after that there will be some information. And that it’s been created specially for my case - well, if it’s necessary, then it’s necessary. I don’t even have the strength to talk about this subject: the state is such that ... you yourself understand. "
Ovchinnikov beat the judge
In yesterday’s match between FC Moscow and Dynamo, a new incident occurred that could overshadow the recent Carvalho case. Dynamo goalkeeper Sergei Ovchinnikov was outraged by the decision of the referee Zakharov to appoint a corner towards his goal, and he poked the referee with his fist. Having received a red card, Ovchinnikov went to the locker room, but suddenly turned around and, with a twisted face in anger, attacked the judge. The partners barely dragged the angry goalkeeper to the side ...
Nikolay VOLGIN