Spent it over the weekend

The Russian Football Championship is back with us: clubs bought new players for gigantic sums, but it is not clear why

A two-month pause in the Premier League, caused by the World Championship in South Africa, which our players, as you know, flew past, which did not prevent them from resting, ends just in time for the final of the main event of the four-year period. Will they transfer...

A two-month pause in the Premier League, caused by the World Championship in South Africa, which our players, as you know, flew past, which did not prevent them from resting, ends just in time for the final of the main event of the four-year period. Will African passions be transferred to Russian lawns? What awaits us at the end of the first round?

And a breathtaking sight awaits us. Though without vuvuzelas, but in 30-degree heat. But it's not about the heat... Our clubs and their patrons surprised during the break not so much with the results of friendly matches, but with the activity on the transfer market.

The capital "Dynamo", striving to get into the top three winners, forked out for the Serbian Lomic and two Koreans with funny names. But the joke is not that for the Koreans, but that for the youth team! If the salary of the German Kevin Kuranyi (he will become richer by more than 15 million euros in three years) even fits into the idiotic scheme mastered in the past by some clubs: “pay a lot of money for stale goods and put kickbacks in your pocket,” then the move of teenagers from Korea, given that the player of the youth team Fedor Smolov, on the contrary, was loaned to the Dutch Feyenoord, pure sabotage. It turns out that we are raising warriors for Hu Jun Mu (coach of South Korea), but we spit on our talents. With such “education and care” about the change of generations, we can get to the World Cup only thanks to the well-known oligarchs and the appetites of individual FIFA officials who dream of retiring as millionaires ... Evgeny Giner, patron of CSKA, did not support the “domestic manufacturer” either. Firstly, army breeders found in England Serb Zoran Tosic from Manchester United (to replace Milos Krasic, who has not yet left). Secondly, the Ivorian Seydou Dumbya, who was bought back in winter from the Swiss Young Boys just in time for the summer period, should make his debut in the red and blue jersey. True, Leonid Slutsky finally got rid of the ballast in the person of the Turk Caner and the Brazilian Carvalho, who forgot how to lace up their boots.

Zenit, in order not to exceed the limit of legionnaires, turned its attention to the guys with a Russian passport. But the favorite club of St. Petersburg residents operates in their usual aggressive manner. The gas workers from the Neva failed to change the residence permit of Dynamo Kolodin, but they do not lose hopes of wresting Alexander Bukharov from Kazan by transferring a round sum to Rubin's account, despite the persistence of Rubin's coach Kurban Berdyev.

The national champion himself decided to seek his fortune over the hill. And in the top leagues. But neither the Italians Fabio Quagliarella and Antonio Di Natale, nor Miroslav Klose, who had a couple of goals left in the net to break the seemingly eternal record of Ronaldo (15 goals in the World Cup finals), were tempted by the beauties of Tatarstan.

Now to the affairs of Spartak. Pets Karpin gain in the face of the new legionnaires have not met, except for returning from the lease of the defender Fathi. The coach still hopes for a trio of Brazilians (Alex - Ibson - Weliton), who are tired of watching football on TV, and that the Scot McGeady from Celtic will sign the red-and-white contract and close one of the problematic positions.

However, the main news of the summer off-season came from the Kremlin: the State Duma adopted amendments to the Criminal Code, which, according to politicians, should contribute to the fight against fixed matches. Their essence is that liability for participation in bribery will not come in cases where the fact of extortion is proven or if a person voluntarily reports bribery to law enforcement agencies. Will there be volunteers? So far, only Khimki, Moscow Region, playing in the first division, have decided on a scandal by reporting to the PFL about an attempt to bribe a player before the match with another Gazprom team, Volgar-Gazprom. By the way, the outcome of this conflict will largely determine whether the new anti-corruption law will work or remain just another declaration. Let's wait...