Miodrag Bozovic resigns from FC Rostov amid the club's financial dilemmas

If you've ever seen contestants walk away on 'Millionaire', you've probably wondered whether or not they should have. They came to gamble, after all, and after making it through to Round Two, there's no harm in wanting to live a little. Then comes the stumper. The contestant frantically digs within his mind for the slightest hint, but to no avail. He or she must come to terms with a reality that's quite different from when the game began.

Bozovic's Final Answer. Illustration © 2014 AleksVArts.

The same thing can be said about Miodrag Bozovic's resignation as manager of FC Rostov, where the reality has become a most negative one. Although his leaving may be attributed to Rostov's crashing out of the Europa League and 1/16 of the Russian Cup, there are other factors that have undoubtedly influenced his decision. It's a greater loss for Rostov than it is for Bozovic; the club will have great difficulty finding a decent manager whose salary demands will fit their depleted budget.

Part of Rostov's dilemma can be traced back to the pre-season conflict with the Russian Football Union (RFU), the latter refusing to grant the club a license to play in Europe due to an alleged breach of financial fair play regulations. At the same time, RFU president Nikolai Tolstykh admitted he was aware of complaints from the club's players concerning debts since 2009, while choosing to punish the team at a very specific moment - right after they won the 2013/14 Russian Cup, their first major trophy in 84 years. The Cup gave Rostov a spot in the UEFA Europa League play-off round. The club successfully appealed to the SAC (Sporting Arbitration Court) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and were granted the right to participate in this season's Europa League competition. Had the appeal been denied, Spartak Moscow, who finished 6th last season, would have been given the coveted UEL spot.

Since then, most, if not all, games featuring Rostov have had questionable refereeing decisions directed towards the side. The refereeing, along with the club's accumulated debts, has yielded poor results, unmotivated players, and ultimately, the head coach's exit.

As many an influential person has already said, Tolstykh's approach to the problem was uncalled-for; any legal issues should be settled among the appropriate persons, and certainly shouldn't affect the coach or the performance of his players.

Putting aside a rather cold and unforgiving RFU pres., we turn our attention to a problematic club management. "All of Rostov's current problems are only due to the lack of funding," said ex-Spartak Moscow president Andrei Chervichenko in an interview with Gazeta.ru. "The coaching staff, manager, and players are all excellent. Unfortunately, money rules almost everything these days, and in this regard, Rostov is far behind the other clubs in the Premier League." Unlike clubs with big corporate sponsors, FC Rostov is funded by the club's city; since March, its title sponsor has been an electrical distributor that is part of the TNS Energy Group. However, players have also received sums in addition to their contract from grants issued by a regional foundation for the promotion of sport. Such a model potentially allowed the club to dodge taxes, as well as to accustom its players to lavish salaries. Nevertheless, FC Rostov's vice president claimed the foundation has been inoperative since 2006.

Chervichenko has alleged that much of the city's budget has been going to Ukrainian refugees who have settled there. According to a recent article, however, the Russian government has been allocating money from the federal budget specifically for the purpose of aiding the refugees who have fled to Rostov and other regions of Russia. Many of the Ukrainian refugees who had settled in the Rostov region have begun returning as peace is restored in Eastern Ukraine. The question, then, is where the rest of Rostov's budget has been going. It is evident that certain portions of money - namely, those set aside to fund the football club - are not ending up where they should.

Thus, we wind up with a manager who is unable to sign new players and is limited to a partly stale, apathetic roster. Bozovic is a rare breed of manager for whom football is about the game and not the money. Unfortunately, there are few people in football that are like him.

Bozovic's exit from Rostov was like a contestant with no lifelines walking away on Millionaire. He walks a Russian Cup winner and Super Cup runner-up, and without potentially tarnishing his managerial record with a sacking or relegation. He has done all he could, and upon realizing that he cannot affect a situation beyond his control, walks, not away from, but towards a new opportunity to do what's in his power as a football manager. Whether that will entail saving another team from relegation, or stabilizing a side in the middle of the table, the Count will undoubtedly begin his new adventure "with too high a spirit to be encumbered" by the blunders and absurdities of everyday life, and will continue to leave his mark in the history of football.

Why two strikers' careers should end this year.

Deception. Disgrace. Two words that very aptly describe two players whose actions have earned them a permanent spot in football's hall of shame. I'm of course referring to Liverpool's Luis Suarez and Dynamo Moscow's Aleksandr Kokorin. Football has always had its share of troubled players, too many to name and some whose evils transcended the pitch into the realm of criminal code. With all the emotional baggage that surrounds every sport, it's easy to forget that at the end of the day, all individuals have a choice: to lower themselves to the level of animals and live by instinct, or to put their personal feelings, qualms and the like aside for the sake of society, their company or team. The always-controversial Luis Suarez cemented his path earlier this season by biting yet another player. Not content with his scandal involving racial abuse hurled at Patrice Evra early in the season, Suarez chose to prolong his already tarnished image. His latest victim was Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic, who, luckily for Suarez, seems to have quickly forgotten about having his arm bitten and shrugged the issue aside. What strikes me as odd however is not the lack of response from Ivanovic and co., but the attitude that Liverpool supporters as well as the club's manager continue to display, to the point where they readily justify Suarez's actions as long as he continues to score goals for the team. The Uruguayan's verbal assault did not stop then-manager Kenny Dalglish from supporting him, and from firmly believing Suarez "doesn't have anything to prove to anyone at Liverpool FC". The Ivanovic incident spurred manager Brendan Rodgers to step up to his player's defense as well. In the most hypocritical statement possible, Rodgers assured the world that Suarez "had not let him down one bit", and although "he is a player who fell well below the standards of [LFC] at the weekend...that doesn't mean he should be thrown to the garbage".

It's a sad day in football when more than one generation of managers backs a player who put a club with a rich and treasured history to shame. Turning a blind eye to a problem only makes it worse. That has been proven time and time again, and yet the decision made regarding each incident continues to be an ellipsis rather than a definite period. Football has enough problems with match-fixing, refereeing, and goal-line technology to be bothered with such antics. As Suarez's first victim Otman Bakkal said back in April, "it doesn't belong on the pitch".


Perhaps a lesser known perpetrator, Aleksandr Kokorin, proved that he too has been wrongfully picked for the starting XI. Like Suarez, Kokorin has established a presence in the mass media for his potential, has long been revered by fans, and has been referred to as a world-class player by the club's manager on more than one occasion. In recent times, the striker came under fire for faking an injury with the intent to preserve his strength for upcoming games with the national team. Dynamo manager Dan Petrescu revealed in several interviews that the problem had nothing to do with Kokorin's fitness, but with "himself". The Russian international had barely returned to the starting XI when his reckless challenge against FC Alania's Danilo Neco in the Premier League's penultimate matchweek initiated a massive brawl. The fight involved Kokorin and Giogri Chanturia, with Dynamo's Balazs Dzsudzsak and captain Leandro Fernandez attempting to pull the two apart. Replays show more than just the tackle and ensuing reaction - Kokorin can be seen punching Chanturia, then intentionally continuing the motion through teammate Dzsudzsak's face. Never mind the first incident; injuring a teammate is reason enough to never again step foot on the pitch. I'd like to point out that both Dzsudzsak and Kokorin were sent off, despite the fact that the former was clearly the victim of the incident, and is shown in replays as trying to keep him and Chanturia apart during the scuffle.

It is one thing to be a sub-par, mediocre and overrated player who brings little to the club. It is another thing entirely to threaten your teammate's health and well-being while simultaneously jeopardizing the reputation of the club and its management. "There should be respectful, intelligent people on the pitch, but we saw unbridled bandits who lost everything, including their conscience," said Spartak Moscow veteran and Soviet champion Valery Reingold. "They say that Kokorin is a star. But he was and stays a zero". Earlier this season, Petrescu hinted at Kokorin's untapped potential, going so far as to say that "he can play for any club in the world", Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Chelsea among them.

Ultimately, talent and character cannot remain separate. Take a player with any amount of potential who has no promise as a person - his career will suffer the minute his true self is revealed to the world, putting a padlock on any possibilities of becoming a legend, or at the very least, at being remembered with fondness.

Suarez and Kokorin's actions initiate a question that continues to hover in 21st century sports and politics: how many times must someone break the rules, and to what extreme must someone break them, before something is finally done? There's another question that should surface in the minds of the intelligent few: why are the rich and famous allowed to get away with things that would immediately send anyone else behind bars?

Whether or not you believe in science, it is a well-established fact of life that one action leads to another, which leads to a series of others, in an infinite progression. Unless an equal and opposite force gets in the way, enough forces can accumulate to escalate the series. There is no need in football for players like Luis Suarez and Aleksandr Kokorin. The management of Liverpool and FC Dynamo would do well to re-read their club mission statements and ban these players from ever stepping foot on the pitch again.

The worst part of the whole shenanigan is that it's more likely than not that nothing will be done. Sure, both players can get fined as many times as the disciplinary committee sees fit. What'll that do? The Lion King taught us at an early age that sometimes, "these outsider types" can't change their stripes. This day and age in sports and politics calls for drastic measures. It's time to administer rules the right way: by being completely unforgiving. An infringement on justice, let alone more than once, deserves no mercy. The FA, RFU, and others can do as they see fit, but that will never change an a priori truth: such behavior is inexcusable, both on and off the pitch.

On Friday, September 28, the Russia Football Union's disciplinary committee, in accordance with the rules of the RFU, has eliminated FC Torpedo Moscow from the Russia Cup and has given FC Dynamo Moscow a 3-0 technical victory. The team has not only been disqualified, but has also been fined 300,000 rubles (about $9,666) and forced to play their next three home games in an empty Eduard Streltsov Stadium.

However, both teams were fined 200,000 rubles (about $6,444) for pyrotechnics used by supporters during the match. The RFU's decision concerned the match between FC Torpedo Moscow and Dynamo Moscow on Wednesday earlier this week, during which a brawl between supporters of both teams broke out outside the stadium and series of projectiles, including pyrotechnics, were thrown onto the pitch during the game.

Blast From the Past

Anatoliy Konkov and Franz Beckenbauer, 1972 UEFA Euro.

Konkov accepting the FFU presidency. Photo: ffu.org

Guinness World Record holder Vladimir Tumayev. Photo: Aleksei Ivanov, Sport-Express

Nikolai Tolstykh (center right) with the FC Dynamo Moscow squad, winners of the 1995 Russia Cup. Photo: Personal archive of Nikolai Tolstykh

Russia's new manager Fabio Capello revealed the list of players who will be training for Russia's international friendly with Cot D'Ivoire. The match will take place on August 15th at 11:00AM (EST) in Moscow at Lokomotiv Stadium. According to the RFU's Official Site, training will begin next Monday, August 13th.

Goalkeepers:
Igor Akinfeev (CSKA Moscow)
Vyacheslav Malafeev (Zenit St. Petersburg)
Anton Shunin (FC Dynamo Moscow)

Defenders:
Aleksandr Anyukov (Zenit St. Petersburg)
Aleksei Berezutskiy (CSKA Moscow)
Vasili Berezutskiy (CSKA Moscow)
Sergei Ignashevich (CSKA Moscow)
Georgi Schennikov (CSKA Moscow)
Taras Burlak (Lokomotiv Moscow)
Andrey Yeschenko (Lokomotiv Moscow)

Midfielders:
Diniyar Bilyaletdinov (Spartak Moscow)
Dmitri Kombarov (Spartak Moscow)
Vladimir Bystrov (Zenit St. Petersburg)
Igor Denisov (Zenit St. Petersburg)
Viktor Fayzulin (Zenit St. Petersburg)
Roman Shirokov (Zenit St. Petersburg)
Alan Dzagoev (CSKA Moscow)
Denis Glushakov (Lokomotiv Moscow)
Magomed Ozdoyev (Lokomotiv Moscow)
Aleksandr Samedov (Lokomotiv Moscow)

Forwards:
Andrei Arshavin (Arsenal FC)
Aleksandr Kerzhakov (Zenit St. Petersburg)
Aleksandr Kokorin (FC Dynamo Moscow)
Roman Pavlyuchenko (Lokomotiv Moscow)


Source: Russia Football Union

Among the few candidates for the new head of the RFU (the last guy was sacked after Euro 2012) is Russia's (and possibly Europe's) oldest professional football player, Vladimir Tumayev. As chairman of First Division club Gazovik-Gazprom, Tumayev joined his players on the pitch on a regular basis and often came out as a sub during games. He played six games for the club and scored a goal at the age of 48. Last year, he told the press that he was offered a position as President of Premier League club Zenit Saint-Petersburg. He turned the job down, stating that his own club was just as good.

You can read more about this genius here.

Russia Football Union To Unveil List of Candidates

Tired of the growing rumor mill (this is football, not Hollywood!), the RFU will clear things up this coming Tuesday, ending speculation on the mystery manager by releasing an official list of candidates. Among the rumored available persons are ex-Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola and former England head coach Fabio Capello. The press has been insistent that one of these men will soon become the head coach of Russia's National Football Team. There have been mentions of less well-known candidates, including secondary NT manager Yuri Krasnozhan and several coaches in the RPL, but recent articles on the supposed signing of either Guardiola or Capello must have hit a nerve. The Russian Football Union issued an official statement clarifying the situation. The first point made by the RFU denies that any contract has been signed thus far for the National Team's managerial post. The second statement is the Union's attempt to take back the reins from the mass media by promising to publish the official list of candidates with whom the RFU will commence discussing a possible signing. Such information is not usually made public, though the head of the Department of Information Policy stated the list will “demonstrate the management's active involvement in the search for a new head coach”. A casting call or a cover-up? Russian news source Gazeta.ru makes a good point by reminding us of England's managerial signing. The FA left the list-making to the press, making Roy Hodgson's appointment completely unexpected. Like Hodgson, the new manager's number one priority will be preparing the team for the 2014 FIFA World Cup.
The last string of success of the Russia NT was with the Flying Dutchman and current Anzhi manager, Guus Hiddink. In 2008, Hiddink led the Russians to 3^rd place in the European Championship.