Match-Fixing and the Balance of Power in Russian Football

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As part of a series of articles on Russian football during the Winter break, False Nine Russian correspondent and debutant contributor, Andy Shenk, pores over the latest scandal in a saga of incidents that have brought match-fixing to the forefront of the squabbling authorities’s attention…

Russian football rumbles often with news of match-fixing, from the lowest to the highest levels. In 2009, Kryliya Sovetov lost 3-2 to Terek in Grozny in a Premier League encounter that reeked of corruption. Though neither team suffered any consequences, Leonid Slutsky, Kryliya manager at the time, commented several years later on the suspiciousness of the match: “I understood that the substance of that history was known at all levels – from Mutko [head of the Russian Football Union then] to the journalists. It’s just that no one’s yet to write the truth of the match in Grozny.” Continue reading

David Bentley and Joey Barton: Pioneering a new age in English football?

False Nine editor James Dutton explores the recent history of English footballers in Europe, the reluctance of present England internationals to move into the unknown and more lessons that can be learned from the Spanish…

David Bentley’s re-location to Russia was heralded by many in the media as the last desperate action of a failed footballer to kickstart his career. Continue reading