Although the Russian Premier League still has one more round to go before the summer break, it looks like CSKA Moscow has already finished their first transfer. After a season without any titles, the Muscovites are looking to strengthen their squad in order to compete with the newly crowned champions from Zenit St. Petersburg next season.
According to the Russian sports-paper Sport-Express CSKA has almost closed the deal with Kuban Krasnodar’s Bulgarian midfielder Ivelin Popov. The 27 year old Popov joined Kuban in 2012 from Turkish side Gaziantepspor for around two million euros. Sport-Express is usually well-informed and regarding Popov they claim the two parties already agree on most parts of the deal, and that the contract is ready to be signed after this season. The rumours started at the end of April, when an anonymous source told the news agency TASS that CSKA was preparing a bid on Popov, but neither CSKA nor Kuban wanted to comment on the rumour back then.
Popov, who in 2010 secured a move to English Blackburn annulled after his working permit application was denied, has been linked with several of the major Russian clubs over the past year. Dinamo Moscow’s sports director Guram Adzhoyev openly admitted that he offered Popov a contract last summer, but the deal never went through. Popov was later asked about the rumours, and he confirmed he spoke with both Adzhoyev and Dinamo’s head coach Stanislav Cherchesov, but also that he could not leave Kuban after everything the club had done for him and his career. In the same interview Popov shot down the rumours of negotiations with the powerhouse Zenit.
Popov extended his contract with Kuban in 2013 and it is set to expire in 2017, which means CSKA will have to dig deep in their pockets to buy him. If they do so, they will get a player who has made four goals and five assists this season. Even though Popov has often been linked to bigger leagues in Western Europe, he is not against staying in Russia for many years, as he told Championat in February.
Popov is not the only player who might leave Kuban, who is struggling financially. Less than a month ago Evgeny Muravyev, the general director of the club, told Sportdaily.ru that Aleksandr Belenov, Charles Kabore, Ibrahima Baldé and of course Popov all were attractive players for many clubs around the world.
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