Zenit went to courts on the “Shunin case”

The Year of the Snake will be the litigation year for Zenit football club. The counsel of the Saint Petersburg club filed an appeal with the CAS against the decision by the RFU on the so-called “Shunin case”. Zenit seeks to retrieve the three points it lost for the incident during the game against Dinamo. However, the Saint Petersburg club’s chances of success are minimal.

Viacheslav Koloskov, Honorary President of the RFU, remarks to the R-Sport agency: “The Court in Lausanne will not consider the case. It only considers international cases, and this one is an internal affair of the RFU. We should ask Zenit, whether or not they know that”.

The scandalous incident occurred on November 17 during a game between Dinamo and Zenit. When the Moscow club was winning 1:0 during the first half, someone from the guest sector threw a firecracker at Anton Shunin, the goalkeeper of the “white-and-blues”. The goalkeeper fell down as if shot. The arbiter interrupted the game and then stopped it altogether, as Shunin was diagnosed with a cornea burn. The video surveillance cameras recorded a girl throwing the firecracker. Three persons were suspected, two of them proving their innocence and the third girl just vanishing. Zenit was unable to prove and the adversary team’s fan had thrown the firecracker, so the Saint Petersburg club was sentenced to a technical defeat pursuant to the current regulations. Also, Zenit held two matches at its stadium without spectators and paid over a million roubles of fines.

Zenit management was not happy with the decision of the Control and Discipline Committee of the RFU. The Saint Petersburg club’s attitude is understandable. Zenit is five points behind the current leader CSKA, and it will be extremely difficult to regain this advantage in the eleven matches that remain until the end of the season. But Zenit has filed the appeal rather for the sake of impressiveness. The Lausanne Court may take a full half-year to consider the case.

Mikhail Prokopets, Head of Sports Law Group of the Law Firm "YUST", explains: “The Court for Sports Arbitration is rather reserved towards the cases involving reviews of the competition results. Lokomotiv once demanded that Rostov be punished with a technical defeat for the illegal transfer of the player Grigoriev. But the CAS refrained from such decision. There were other cases, but all of them were resolved against the plaintiffs. The CAS usually considers violations of contractual obligations towards players, other cases, but is averse to reviewing the results”.

We will add that Zenit suggests replaying the game. We will see what develops in 2013.

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