Shooting star

Hockey player Sergei Zinoviev stopped playing the "gray"

Leave the golden cage. The star of Russian hockey Sergey Zinoviev left the Kazan Ak Bars. The departure was accompanied by a scandal. A new type of scandal. The New Times sorted out his nuances

Imagine that you are a hockey player, one of the best in Russia. You have a big salary, fame, but they don’t give you play-because you somehow did not get along with the coach. Many did not get along with him, and you are now one of them. Last year you signed a new contract with the club - until 2012. Then you received a large lifting, but now it is no longer happy. Because you are 28 years old and really want to play.

If you got used to the image, then know: your name is Sergey Zinoviev and you play in the Kazan Ak Bars. Rather, they played.

I ask for exchange!

Zinoviev did not know how to break out of this golden cage. He was already tired with the leadership of the club, realizing that this does not bring any result. And began to communicate through the press. The “Soviet sport” was elected for discussions. Sergey asked for an exchange. He said that he did not want to be a new victim of the head coach Zinatulla Bilyaletdinov, and listed the players whom he clamped the same as it is now.

And the vice-president of Ak Bars Ravil Shavaleev was poetic: “There is a contract signed by blood, and Zinoviev must work it!” When Shavaleev was asked about the possibility of the exchange of Zinoviev, he laughed and said that there would be no exchange.

Everyone was sure that Zinoviev would not leave the club. No one saw the hooks. According to the Rules of the Continental Hockey League (KHL), the hockey player can break the contract unilaterally without a good reason, but then must pay 2/3 of his salary, which remained until the end of the agreement, for a month. At Zinoviev, the contract with Ak Bars ended in 2012. But do this hockey player, before this very 2012 he would not have the right to play in Russia for any other team except Kazan.

Another loophole is a violation of the essential clauses of the contract, in particular, those related to the payment of wages: money to the hockey player account should be received at least twice a month. And if the delay in payments is more than two months, the player will receive the right to break the contract. But Zinoviev played in Ak Bars, where the salary is regularly transferred to a crisis. Sergei, desperate, wrote a letter to the KHL at the end of November.

Paid more than necessary

On December 6, the Continental Hockey League gave the hockey player the right to break the contract. The same, "signed by blood."

No one could understand the reasons, especially since the KHL remained silent in the early days. It was known that for some violations. But for which one? After all, the salary was paid on time, but they didn’t give it to play (or gave little) - well, this is a coaching prerogative. And that you are one of the best Russian centers are, in general, few people care about. Train, prove - maybe they will put on the next game. When the reason was opened, it became quite fun. The reason is in the salary. Specifically, that Zinoviev was paid more than they should. What, huh?

(When an organization was created by the name of the KHL, the leaders of the clubs almost swore to each other in the fact that everyone could at any time check the payment statement of the other. And Zinoviev, as it turned out, was introduced monthly in excess of the official statement.)

Shavaleev has changed. He, who previously declared that there would be no exchange, suddenly said that the exchange was almost ready, only Zinoviev did not wait for him. And somehow shyly shifted from foot to foot in front of the cameras. The vice president looked like a victim of raiders.

Another vice president-already the continental hockey league-Vladimir Shalaev called the press conference. He showed everyone a Zinoviev’s letter there and said that those who think that the hockey player passed his club are mistaken. “He wrote only about game problems, that he did not get into the composition, but not about financial violations,” said Shalaev.

In his letter, Shalaev, Zinoviev, has long listed everything he had to encounter in Ak Bars in recent months: a conclusion from the composition, scanty playing time, the inability to grow professionally. He also attached the conclusions of experts that he was healthy (Bilyaletdinov at one time said that the hockey player had an injury). And in the end, Sergei wrote: “I ask your intervention in the current conflict situation. I believe that the terms of my contract are violated, and I ask you to consider the possibility of its termination. ” Well, the league intervened. I looked at the contract, found violations, gave the hockey player the right to terminate it. He was terminated.

The clubs are updated

Along the way, Ak Bars, and with it the Ufa Salavat Yulaev and Togliatti Lada were fined a KHL for improper drawing up contracts. Someone did not reflect all hockey players in them, someone had additional agreements in addition to the contract-all this contradicts the regulations. At the same time, Shalaev said that there were no gray and underground schemes, otherwise law enforcement agencies would have already begun this.

As a result, having lost Zinoviev, Ak Bars lost another 3 million rubles as a fine. The club is not going to give up. Now his turn is to write letters in the KHL - and he writes. It requires to explain why it is fined why Zinoviev is deprived of. Even the leaders of Ak Bars called on colleagues to solidarity: the appeal in which Zinoviev refuses to recognize as a free agent ¹ , signed eighteen clubs.

The St. Petersburg SKA, the Moscow Dynamo, Omsk Avangard, Novokuznetsk Metallurg and the Voskresensky Chemist did not put their signatures. The first three clubs were originally considered the main applicants for Zinoviev. SKA, however, would hardly sign it: the Petersburgers were already hastened to say that they did not consider such an opportunity. They can be understood: the club is headed by KHL President Alexander Medvedev. Therefore, “sign” Peter Zinoviev - it would look like raiding. Dynamo is still silent.

And with the “Vanguard” an interesting situation: when we talked with the club’s general manager Anatoly Bardin on November 18, he said that he respects Zinoviev as a hockey player, but does not want to deal with a scandalous player. Bardin himself worked slightly on the scandalousness of Zinoviev: a few years ago he dropped phrases like “I don’t know what Zinoviev smoked there again” (marijuana’s traces were once found in Zinoviev’s body).

But now Bardin needs to take words back and start fighting for Zinoviev. His “Vanguard”, which in November has never won in regular time at all once, is now a cool center forward is now more necessary than all other clubs. And, of course, we must work on drawing up a contract - and more than recorded, try not to pay.

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¹ Player who has the right to conclude a contract with any KHL club.