Russia’s first match-fixing scandal of the season has erupted this week after it emerged that the match between Ural Sverdlovskaya Oblast and Terek Grozny on Friday August 28 had received extremely abnormal patterns in favour of the latter. Online bookmaker Marathonbet, which at one point accounted for 50% of Russia’s football gambling market, offered odds of over 5.00 for the home team Ural to win, despite them being one place above their opponents in the league.
Online commentary went into overdrive, with Sport Express Editor-In-Chief Artur Petrosyan pointing out “it’s not every day a 10-placed team are 5/1 to beat a 12-placed [sic] team at home” on his personal twitter account. Speculation that the Russian Premier League’s easternmost club had agreed to throw the result of this game as a thank you to Terek for losing to them in Chechnya last season was denied by Ural, as they also had to fend off talk that newly appointed manager Viktor Goncharenko had resigned.
It's not every day a 10-placed team are 5/1 to beat a 12-placed team at home. Don't wanna believe it's going to be fixed again. #Ural #Terek
— Artur Petrosyan (@arturpetrosyan) August 25, 2015
The 38-year-old Belorussian, who guided BATE Borisov to a stunning Champions League 3-1 win against Bayern Munich three years ago, has been reported to have returned to Minsk, with first team coach Yuriy Matveev taking charge of the Terek fixture. The club have stated that he has become unavailable for duty due to personal reasons, and have denounced the media claims that he has terminated his employment. His countrymen Yuriy Zhevnov and Aleksandr Martynovich were dropped from the starting line-up to add fuel to the fire in front of the RFPL Commissioner Sergey Kulikov, who was sent to inspect the integrity of the match.
“The club is considering such attempts to destabilise the club,” read an official club statement on Tuesday. “FC Ural are angered by some media attempts to explain the departure of Viktor Goncharenko with anecdotal evidence, which is contrary to the spirit of fair play.” The accusations of match fixing were equally forcefully denied. “Such speculation we believe to be slanderous, aimed at tarnishing the image of the club, which has always professed and will manifest the principles of fair play.”
Kulikov himself was satisfied with the honesty in the thrilling 3-3 contest, in which Alexander Erokhin’s 89th minute header earned Ural a point having gone 2-0 up after 20 minutes. “The teams answered those who did not believe in the honesty of the match on the pitch,” he said afterwards. “An attempt to encroach on the honour the club was averted. In the game, I went out with the understanding that maybe somehow I could be fooled. But personally I do not doubt the honesty of the game, as I think many others who watched the game do not either.”
The Belorussian news agency BTRC claimed there is a unusual clause in Goncharenko’s contract that allows him to unilaterally dissolve his contract, which Ural president Grigoriy Ivanov confirmed to Sport Express after the match. “We have agreed with him that if he receives a good offer from another club then I will not ask any questions of him. If he leaves the club through his own fault, he must pay us three times his salary, and if we break the agreement, we must pay him three salaries.” It was a massive coup for the Ekaterinburg-based club to sign such a highly-rated young manager, and to lose him would be disastrous for Ural.
Back in Goncharenko’s homeland, agent Valery Isaev praised his compatriot for showing “guts”, and suggested that “only now can he tell stories”. Given the obvious probability of him continuing his career in Russia, it is unlikely that he would fully disclose any highly controversial matters, even if he did have anything to tell. His chances of furthering his ambitions to once again lead a club in Europe would be severely hampered if he were to name names.
The match itself was explosive, despite the pounding rain, as Edgar Manucharyan and Pablo Fontanello gave the hosts the lead against the odds. Zaur Sadaev’s first goal on Russian soil for over three years drew Terek level just before the break, but when Ismail Aissati put the visitors in front with a quarter of the match to play, nervous glances were cast. That was until Premier League top goalscorer Erokhin, recently called up to the Russian squad by Leonid Slutskiy, rose highest to power home his fourth goal of the season to save face all round.
It remains to be seen what the fallout will be with Goncharenko’s bizarre disappearance. Until a full disclosure from himself, Ural’s hierarchy and Terek is publically available, attention will inevitably turn to the return league fixture in Grozny with conclusions drawn from almost any result that comes. Ivanov says he wants to sit down and discuss the events of the last week with Goncharenko when he returns, but is in the dark as to what will happen. Once again, the contract of a manager in Russia comes under intense scrutiny after Fabio Capello’s messy divorce from his post as the highest paid international manager in world football.
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Author: Andrew Flint
I moved out to Russia in 2010 to teach English because it sounded like fun, then I met and fell in love with FC Tyumen (and my wife!) and decided to stay. Surprisingly, I turned out to be the only English person remotely interested in a Siberian third-tier club, but then who wouldn’t fall for a grizzly Georgian midget, a flying Brazilian and Tyumen’s 93rd most influential figure…
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