Ramzan Kadyrov 2014/15 - Rolling Eastern European Football / Minor Despot Thread

With the most gifted Irishman of his generation now setting the EPL alight, i think it's time for a new thread for Russian / Eastern European football and comedy strongmen.

The continuing adventures of Ramzan Kadyrov and Aiden McGeady: Russian Premier League 2011/12

http://i.imgur.com/ls7ulSl.png

They're ready!

http://i.imgur.com/ZlvSdM9.jpg

He's ready!

http://i.imgur.com/pUhK9p7.jpg?1

He's ready!

http://i.imgur.com/CClTQ3l.jpg?1

He's ready!

http://i.imgur.com/swxOzF8.jpg

He's MIA!

Four rounds played so far in Russia and the most eye-catching results have been Dinamo Moscow's 7-3 win over Rostov and Zenit's 8-1 demolition of Torpedo Moscow. The newly promoted teams have struggled - Tula propping up the table with a point, but Rostov, Perm, Ural and, surprisingly Rubin Kazan, are all yet to win. Arguably the most significant result so far has been Spartak beating CSKA at home, the champions having not strengthened their squad at all over the summer.

Most exciting new arrival is definitely Valbuena but Quincy Promes at Spartak will be worth watching. Garcia and Garay at Zenit should probably put them clear of any title rivals this year.

The handful of crazy scorelines means that Hulk, Rondon, Kokorin, Kuranyi and Dzyuba have all averaged a goal a game so far but it's the latter who is looking sharpest.

In Ukraine, having ruled out revolution and war, it looks like nothing short of the apocalypse is going to slow down Shakhtar, who have relocated their routine home victories to Kyiv until the bombing stops. The biggest news is probably that Bernard apparently hasn't been seen by anyone at the club since he left for the World Cup. He has made it fairly clear he's not coming back to Shakhtar but seems to have decided he's not going to set foot in the country until he's sold.

In Kadyrov news, he appears to have had 1000 wedding guests questioned by police after losing the phone he uses for Instagram.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/19/chechen-leader-wedding-phone-ramzan-kadyrov-instagram

Two more for Dzyuba today. Can only be a matter of time before some of England's big fetishists start giving a 6' 5" goal machine the glad eye.

Total spend / sales in Euro for the 16 RPL clubs:

1. «Зенит» - 22,8* - 0**
2. «Динамо» - 18,5 - 0
3. «Спартак» - 11,5 - 11,5
4. «Локомотив» - 10,5 - 0
5. «Рубин» - 8 - 10,5
6. «Уфа» - 0,6 - 0
7. «Мордович» - 0,4 - 0
8. «Кубань» - 0,3 - 0
9. «Торпедо» - 0,2 - 0
10. ЦСКА - 0,19 - 3,9
11. «Амкар» - 0 - 1,5
12. «Терек» - 0 - 1
13. «Арсенал» - 0 - 0
14. «Краснодар» - 0 0-0
15. «Ростов» - 0 - 0
16. «Урал» - 0 -0

In total, €73m spent, 25% of the 2013 summer figure. Decline of the rouble vs the Euro may be a factor.

Zenit beat Lokomotiv away this weekend and continue to look unstoppable.

Zenit are seven points clear of CSKA, having beaten them away yesterday, and it looks like the league might just be a procession from this point on. The solidity that Garcia has brought was he only thing missing last year.

Shakhtar lost for the third time in four matches and are currently third in Ukraine, with Dnipro leading.

Rostov's African players are reportedly refusing to train after the manager outed himself as a massive racist. Guélor Kanga might be worth a look for mid-level EPL clubs.

http://i.imgur.com/Bt77DJ1.png

Zenit 1 - Terek Grozny 3

Over in Croatia Kramaric got the first five of Rijeka's six goals vs Lokomotiva today. Heavily linked with Inter now.

54 goals in 59 matches since joining them.

lol. Capello hasn't been paid for five months. The Russian Football Federation is essentially bankrupt.

http://i.imgur.com/SdvBpYV.jpg

Dario Srna has donated 20 tonnes of tangerines and photos of Dario Srna to the children of Donetsk. idk.

http://i.imgur.com/hMyL3q8.jpg

This is kind of amazing:

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/08/steaua-bucharest-romania-lose-name-colours-emblem-court-ruling-defence-ministry

The Russian MOD still holds shares in CSKA Moscow. I am not sure if CSKA Sofia have to pay royalties to the Bulgarian army.

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian Premier League clubs will ask their players to accept pay cuts in response to a sharp fall in the value of the ruble.

All 16 top-flight clubs agreed to ask players to accept revised deals pegged to a fixed exchange rate that is significantly lower than the current rate, according to documents released by the league.

That would effectively mean pay cuts of more than 20 percent for most of the league's senior players.

The ruble has lost almost half of its value against the dollar and euro this year.

Russian football stars often have contracts that are denominated in euros or dollars but paid in rubles under a floating exchange rate, meaning their wages have risen sharply in absolute terms as the ruble declines.

nothing on frimpongs twitter about it yet

There was a report yesterday that the RPL's income is about $60m per season and its expenses are $1bn.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jan/04/anzhi-makhachkala-gasan-magomedow-shot-killed-russia

I feared that would be the thread bump already :(

Yes, that was horrific. No speculation as to motive in the press yet.

AVB sent off during Zenit's hopeless 3-1 home loss to Krylya Sovetov:

http://youtu.be/8EG6fQLP6wc

They lost to Krasnodar at home last time.

fleetwood town under their 'massively driven' technical director now have some liaison with lokomotiv tashkent

https://twitter.com/ftfc/status/645173116532994048

https://twitter.com/ftfc/status/645933638203371520

https://twitter.com/gretz1982/status/615530398794285056

Interesting season. Up until two months ago about six teams could plausibly have won the league, including Rostov and Krasnodar. It looked for while like Zenit might recover from an appalling start to overhaul CSKA but, on the final day, they can't finish higher than third - meaning they are out of the CL next year. Barring a huge upset CSKA will win again and Rostov will come second. AVB is on his way back to Portugal and I wouldn't be surprised to see at least a couple of Zenit's stars jump ship.

CSKA have been pretty unimpressive. Musa and Dzagoev have had solid seasons but the players they have brought in - Olanare, Strandberg and Tkachev - are unlikely to help them make much of the European campaign next year. Amir Natkho, cousin of the excellent Israeli-Circassian player Bibras Natkho, might be interesting though.

The relegation places are much more exciting. Two points separate five teams, including Kuban and a wretched Dinamo Moscow, and any of them could be saved, relegated outright or go into the playoff. Dinamo have Zenit at home today and, if the latter bother to turn up, they are probably doomed.

This is great fun. Saransk are down and Zenit have just scored twice against Dinamo which would put them down as well. It would be the first time since they were founded 93 years ago that they'd be playing outside the top division. They're the only team to have never been relegated. They started the year with the hapless Boris Rotenberg jr at right back, presumably as a favour to his well-connected billionaire father (both are on the U.S. sanctions list) and have somehow become even worse since dropping him. I think the only thing that could even put them in the relegation playoffs rather than the straight drop would be Ufa losing vs Spartak - they are currently 2-1 up against a team with no reason to do Dinamo any favours.