Just when it seemed Kuban Krasnodar’s season couldn’t get any more ridiculous, Evgeniy Seleznev has left the club he joined less than three months ago and has signed a two-year contract with his former club and Europa League semi-finalists Shakhtar Donetsk. He moved to Russia in the winter after having got to the final of Europe’s second-tier club competition last season with unfancied Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, but claimed to have not been paid in three months and to have lost patience with his employers. He leaves having scored three times in nine matches, with just one win and Kuban in dire trouble in the relegation zone.
The 49-cap Ukraine international was brought in amongst an incongruous batch of signings who seemed completely out of kilter with the finances and strength of the club on the pitch, chief of whom was ex-Borussia Dortmund defender Felipe Santana. The farce surrounding the signing, then instant dismissal of, Bulgarian Vladimir Gadzhev was unbelievable for a professional football club, especially as it came at the same time as Santana was trumpeted as a glamour transfer. Last summer the signings of ageing Russian stars Andrey Arshavin and Roman Pavlyuchenko should have been a sign of things to come, as neither were fit or in form enough to have the slightest impact on the team; Arshavin has since moved to Kazakhstan, while Pavlyuchenko only managed his first league goal for the club in midweek, 28 matches into the season.
Seleznev’s signing was actually more sensible on the face of it; his profile meant that his salary was most likely still quite high, but he is a striker at the top of his game who offers a more mobile and physical option up front that Pavlyuchenko. After a successful continental campaign last season, a move to the higher-profile Russian league was a logical step for him to ensure he was in the limelight for the Ukraine squad for this summer’s European Championships, but he is now at serious risk of missing out.
His final few weeks in Krasnodar were punctuated by salary disputes, with his agent Vadim Shabliy claiming not one rouble had been paid to his client. Delays in delivery of payments throughout the squad have since been confirmed by the club itself, although they have promised to pay their dues in full. The chronic overspending and completely illogical, or nonexistent, planning of off field matters has made the environment one which no player would wish to stay around in, and will surely see a mass exodus at the end of the season regardless of their league status.
Shabliy told journalists earlier this week of a smear campaign conducted by the club against the Ukrainian – who was reportedly sent home from his national team’s training camps in March for being based in Russia – which culminated in claims the striker had arrived drunk at the club’s training ground, which Seleznev srenuously denies, and that he had thrown matches. On Thursday, Roman Pavlyuchenko revealed that a conflict between former manager Sergey Tashuev and the playing squad had been going on for weeks prior to the coach’s dismissal a fortnight ago; Seleznev was selected to start in every match by Tashuev, but it would hardly have helped his confidence in his manager to see such a lack of harmony.
When questioned about his experiences with Kuban on Friday, such was the animosity between player and club that Seleznev simply responded; “What could they be? It’s better to ask my lawyers about them.” Even in the event of Kuban staying up and securing reliable, regular funding, they face an uphill battle to attract players of international calibre to the club, something they will have to do if they wish to do more than simply scrap for Premier League survival.
One positive side of this season’s mad saga has been the slightly enforced dependence on youth. Maxim Mayrovich, Svetoslav Georgievskiy and Denis Yakuba have emerged in recent weeks and have given Kuban options that satisfy both the foreigners’ restrictions and the necessary energy to boost the late dash for survival. Seleznev himself commented that he had a good relationship with his teammates, which indicates the issue is in the running of the club off the pitch; one hopes that the futures of these promising young talents are not damaged in the same way that many senior players have become disenfranchised with strings of broken promises.
What the whole episode of Evgeniy Seleznev has shown is that the desperate scramble to secure Premier League status is not something that can be bought with a few marquee signings. Compare their turmoil to the calm progress of city neighbours FC Krasnodar; Ragnar Sigurdsson and Andreas Granqvist were hardly deemed worldwide names before they arrived, but have formed a solid partnership in defence, while the signings of Fyodor Smolov and Vyacheslav Podberezkin on free transfers were both efficient and forward thinking.
Relegation looks a distinct reality, especially given the pressure of today’s clash with Dinamo Moscow – the losing side will be favourites for an automatic drop – but perhaps it would be the best for the health of the club in the long term. A purge of the highly-paid and, in many cases, under-motivated foreign stars will clear the way for more youngsters to build a team for the long term and earn the right to play in the top flight. The issue of funding will be readdressed, while the need to have more patience in the managerial hot seat will be highlighted: perhaps Seleznev will be glad he is not around for the struggle.
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