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Russian national team players Sergei Ignashevich and Dmitry Bulykin will miss not five Premier League matches, but only three. The punishment for these footballers was softened due to the national team's interests.
Ignashevich may appear on the field as early as today, when his team meets [team name redacted]. Bulykin, on the other hand, will appear in the starting lineup on April 11 in the 6th round match against Yaroslavl [team name redacted]. However, the amnesty is conditional. The text of the Premier League's Control and Discipline Committee, published on the official Russian Premier League website, states: "Due to the exemplary behavior and preparation of the mentioned footballers for the upcoming matches of the European Championship, based on the disciplinary regulations of the Russian Football Union and the competition regulations of the Russian Premier League, two out of five matches have been realized as conditional disqualification for a 6-month probation period, allowing the mentioned footballers to participate in the Russian Championship Cup, including the ones they have already missed."
The players will be closely monitored, and if they commit a repeat offense, their punishments will be tougher: "Any red card issued to the mentioned footballers during the probation period of the Russian Championship and the Cup matches automatically suspends the latter, and the postponed disqualification matches will be added to a new disqualification period, which will be decided by the relevant decision of the Control and Discipline Committee."
Ignashevich and Bulykin were disqualified for their involvement in a brawl that occurred during the March 20 match between "CSKA" and "Dynamo". At that time, the Control and Discipline Committee did not consider the interests of the national team, where both of these players are key players, and punished them by giving them the maximum penalty - disqualification for five matches. The players could maintain their playing practice by playing for the second teams of the clubs and the national team.
During the suspension of both players, Russia and Bulgaria's national teams had a match, in which the head coach of the national team, Grigory Jarcev, gave Bulykin and Ignashevich a chance to play the full 90 minutes. However, the match against the Bulgarians showed that the playing inactivity affected both players' form - in Sofia, they did not play their best match.
On Tuesday, "Dynamo" management appealed to the Russian Football Union in a letter, asking for leniency towards forward Dmitry Bulykin. A more well-equipped "CSKA", and even leniency towards Ignashevich, would not have been harmful either, as two weeks after the mentioned brawl, another key defense pillar of the army team - Bogdan Shershun - was removed from the field.
On the same day, Tuesday, the general secretary of the Russian Football Union, Vladimir Radionov, sent another letter to the Control and Discipline Committee of the Russian Football Premier League. In it, Radionov asked to apply to the offenders such a FIFA regulation article as "partial suspension of sanctions implementation".
The appeal of the general secretary of the Russian Football Union and the key factor in the leniency towards the footballers.
Of course, in this case, the typical application of "double standards" is clearly visible. In all other cases, the Control and Discipline Committee did not compromise with clubs whose players were disqualified for five matches. Last season, the players Pavlenko and Mitreski, "Dynamo" representative Koroman, all served the full five-match suspension, and most importantly - a year ago, the same Control and Discipline Committee refused to show leniency towards Russian national team goalkeeper Sergei Ovchinnikov, who was disqualified for five matches for an offense he committed while representing the national team. But then the European Championship was still far away, and now it's just two months away. It seems that in the interests of national teams, principles can be overlooked.
