Bigbucks Russian club goes bang

The centrepiece club for the Winter Olympics in 2014 went out of business over the weekend, just after Yuri Zhirkov joined neighbours Anzhi.

Sochi were given a heap of cash and had a playing budget in excess of $10million to win promotion to the Premier League, though with rotten attendances and players in revolt over behind the scenes messing about, the Kremlin plaything dropped out of the league.

A "rationalisation" a couple of years back saw the Moscow Regional Government declare that it would only provide part funding for 1 "county" club - Saturn Ramenskoye, and let the other FC Khimki, fall into the 2nd level where it now gains most of it's money renting it's ground to Premier clubs like CSKA and Dinamo. Before this season Saturn went bang and a reshuffle saw a previously disgraced club, Fakel Voronezh, offered a place in the 1st Divsion as clubs moved up.

There is general chatter here that a domino effect is about to happen - as with Zvezda Irkutsk 4 years ago. 3 1st Division clubs called emergency meetings while a number of 2nd division clubs have been put on notice (according to Vesti Sport).

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/a...ue/441728.html