Like water from Gus

The coach of the Russian national team came out of a tax scandal with a suspended sentence

Russia's third traditional misfortune - the national football team - was deprived of its last chanceto attribute its failures to objective circumstances in the form of Dutch justice. Yesterday, the court of the Dutch city of Den Bosch did not put the head coach of our team, Guus Hiddink, in prison for tax evasion . He was only fined 45 thousand euros and sentenced to suspended imprisonment for six months. This means that Hiddink can finally take a break from his tax problems and devote himself fully to his professional activities.

Let us recall that Guus Hiddink was accused of tax evasion in the amount of 1.4 million euros. In 2002-2003, he coached the Dutch club PSV Eindhoven, for which, naturally, he received a substantial remuneration. However, Hiddink indicated the Belgian village of Ahel as his place of residence. And since the tax system in Belgium is more liberal than the Netherlands, the coach managed to save a lot of money on the imaginary change of registration. When this story became known last year, tax authorities initiated criminal proceedings against Guus Hiddink.

According to the law, the coach faced a very substantial punishment - prosecutors believed that the accused should be sent to prison for ten months. However, many believed that it would not come to real imprisonment, since such stories here most often end with either a fine or a suspended sentence. So the coach of the Russian national team received an average punishment and can consider that he got off relatively lightly. The reason for this was, perhaps, that Hiddink’s lawyers admitted the client’s guilt, clarifying that he made a mistake in good faith, becoming a victim of his financial advisers.

Hiddink, apparently, managed to convince the leadership of the Russian Football Union of the same version. In any case, yesterday, commenting on the court decision, RFU President Vitaly Mutko said that a coach of this level can afford not to delve into some of the subtleties. At the same time, Mr. Mutko expressed surprise at such significant miscalculations of the Dutch specialist’s financial consultants. And he assured that the RFU, at the stage of preparing the first contract with a foreign coach for the national team, even consulted with the Ministry of Finance.

Now Hiddink will return to his place of work in the very next few days - to the leadership of the Russian national team. They are expecting him in Moscow on March 3, and, as Mr. Mutko assured, they not only do not intend to terminate the contract with the foreign coach, but intend to support him in every possible way. This year the team will play decisive matches in the 2008 European Championship qualifying tournament. So far, the team is doing moderately well - we have not lost our chances of reaching the finals. And our players played their most unsuccessful match against the Dutch (1:4) right in the midst of criminal proceedings in Den Bosch, immediately after the prosecution demanded a ten-month sentence for one of the best coaches in the world.

Mikhail MANSKOY