The long-awaited Yelets

For the first time, it became possible to punish football dealers

Russian football is close to proving for the first time in its history that club officials attempted to bribe a referee. The chief referee of the second division match "Elets" - "Fakel-Voronezh" Maxim Koreshkov, having given written testimony, officially admitted that he had received an offer from both teams to ensure the result of the match. As a result, Fakel-Voronezh won a convincing victory - 3:1. Yesterday, the Russian Football Union created a special commission to investigate this case, headed by PFL President Nikolai Tolstykh. In the near future, based on the results of its work, which will be presented either to the executive committee of the RFU or to the control and disciplinary committee (CDC), both clubs may be excluded from the competition and deprived of professional status.

As an internal PFL investigation showed, referee Koreshkov had contacts with representatives of the Fakel-Voronezh club at least twice. On the eve of the match there was a telephone conversation, and after the game, as PFL President Nikolai Tolstykh put it, “already after dark” - there was personal contact. Representatives of Fakel-Voronezh themselves do not deny that they met with the arbitrator, although neither party convincingly explained the purpose of these contacts.

A conversation on a similar topic with representatives of Yelets, according to the judge, took place directly on the day of the match, literally in the corridor. But it was the general director of Yelets, Yuri Kiselev, who unwittingly became the initiator of the PFL investigation. After the end of the game, he came to the referee's room and threatened the match inspector and the referees that drugs would be found in their car when leaving the city. “After the end of the game in the referee’s room, the director of the Yelets club, Yu.A. Kiselev. in the presence of the refereeing team and the inspector, he threatened the chief judge. The essence of the threat is that when you cross the city border, they will find drugs in your car,” noted in the report of meeting inspector Mikhail Petrov.

When the inspector was invited to the PFL to clarify all the circumstances, new details were revealed. “When asked if he knew about any other circumstances surrounding this match, the inspector stated that, according to the chief referee of the match, the refereeing team was offered a reward by both teams for showing loyalty, which ultimately reflected in the result,” said the general director PFL Andrey Sokolov. The chief arbiter confirmed this information. The materials collected by the Professional Football League even include a clear amount, which, however, has not yet been disclosed.

As Nikolai Tolstykh told a Vremya Novostey correspondent, there are no plans to involve law enforcement agencies in the investigation of this case. “If their help is needed, we will do it, but I believe that the Russian football community has all the regulatory documents that allow us to investigate and suppress such incidents ourselves,” said the head of the PFL. According to the competition regulations, clubs found to be bribing and attempting to bribe referees and putting pressure on judges face various penalties, including exclusion from the tournament and disqualification.

This is not the first high-profile case where football referees have come under pressure. For example, in 2005, before the match “Lokomotiv” - “Spartak”, in which the fate of the silver medals in the national championship was determined, the chief referee Valentin Ivanov received a call from an unknown person and, threateningly, offered to refuse to officiate this game. As the investigation established, the call was from the 51-year-old chief accountant of one of the capital's design firms, who acted at the request of his friends, but for a fee. But now, for the first time, the football authorities have confirmed evidence that includes officials of Russian clubs.

Andrey VDOVIN