The week when Russian football was buried

Here's to your week! Fear! For Russian sports fans there is melancholy and sadness. And for the RFU (Russian Football Union) this is a serious reason to think. But, excuse me, when has this ever happened to us, so that functionaries, sitting tightly and comfortably in warm, nourishing places, began to grieve because of sporting failures? Until the thunder strikes...

First, Dynamo Moscow lost to Lokomotiv Tbilisi, scoring one goal but conceding two. Afterwards, “Rostov” merged with a similar score - the Israeli “Maccabi” became its offender, but once upon a time the Rostovites competed with “Bavaria” itself. However, in the old days, the Volgograd “Rotor”, which is now suffering one technical defeat after another (coronavirus, well!), fought on equal terms with the mega-club “Manchester United”. And yes, last week Krasnodar won against the Greek PAOK. Well, how did you win? Bounced off.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

You can, of course, say that in some places it was unlucky, in some places the coaches did not work, in others the players did not work – but this is just lyrics. And the majority of people involved in football are sad – systemic! – understands the state of affairs perfectly. The trouble is not that, for example, coach Valery Karpin set up the team poorly - even if that is also the case, but, first of all, we are dealing with a systemic crisis in Russian football. Our teams fail in European competitions over and over again. And the domestic championship, let’s take off the rose-colored glasses, is turning into a swamp, from which, with all sorts of efforts – honest and not so honest – they are dragging out a political project called “Zenith”, turning fans away from football.

Actually, the next round of the domestic championship, which took place last weekend, once again confirmed this. Rostov was partially rehabilitated in front of the fans by beating Arsenal Tula. But the most interesting thing again took place not on the football plane, but on the refereeing level. Yes, without question, Zenit outplayed Ufa in all respects - however, this does not negate the fact that the referee gave a completely tragicomic penalty against the Ufa team. St. Petersburg player Serdar Azmun not only pretended to be an opponent in the penalty area, but behaved as if, after finishing his football career, he decided to become an actor. Look, not only Petrov will appear on the screen.

I focus on this event because it is the key to understanding the failures of Russian football on the international stage. Unfortunately, when playing within the championship, players get used to certain rules of the game, namely that everything is decided not on the football field, but outside it.

Why does Zenit St. Petersburg fail over and over again? Yes, because Azmun, Dzyuba and the company habitually wait for the referee’s whistle - they say, why bother? However, in Europe, referees are not aware of the political “order”. This relaxes some and stresses others.

Add to this an artificial limit that limits the presence of foreigners in teams and actually allows Russian players to stay in comfortable, well-fed conditions without competition - and you get the following picture. A championship tailored to the victories of one club. Strange judging. Russian players who receive huge salaries and are unnecessary to anyone in Europe (with rare exceptions, except for the clever Alexei Miranchuk). Foreigners who, having found themselves in dubious realities, very quickly lower their demands on themselves (Malcom in Barcelona and Malcom in Zenit are two different characters).

And everything would be fine if such a “feast” did not cost such colossal money. However, Russian football is very expensive. Yes, big money in football circulates all over the world, but there it is private and sponsorship funding. In Russia, 95 percent of football (a successful exception that only confirms the rule is Sergei Galitsky’s Krasnodar) is financed by the state.

So tell me: why do we need this kind of football? Especially in difficult times in every sense. No bread - get circuses? But they don’t exist either. From the word “in general”. Again and again, Russian football fails and is disgraced in the world, and the Russian people pay for this shame.

A strange event in every sense. With a touch of masochism, no less. So then can someone explain to us what it is for then?