Krasnodar returns to Premier League

At the general meeting of the Russian Football Premier League the decision was made to put "Krasnodar" football club into the 2011/12 season championship.

"Krasnodar" will replace "Saturn" (Moscow region) in the Russian Premier League due to "Saturn's" financial problems. In the 2010 season "Krasnodar" came fifth place in the top division. "Nizhny Novgorod" and "KAMAZ" (Naberezhnie Chelny) could also have replaced "Saturn", but they declined participation, probably because of a lack of money.

The president of the "CSKA" football club, Roman Babayev, stated that the integration of "Krasnodar" into the Premier League is an ambiguous issue."There are two sides: moral and judicial. From a moral point of view some people consider that "Alania" deserves to play in the PL; some people think "Krasnodar" should play in the PL. In both cases the rules were broken. "Alania" crashed out in the Premier League, "Krasnodar" didn't get in. As for the judicial side of the question, there are no official norms accepted for 2011. We use the norms of 2010," he said.

At the meeting the situation with "Amkar" (Perm) was also discussed. In December 2010 the club said it was leaving the PL because of financial problems, but later it changed its mind. Thus, "Amkar" will remain among the participants in the Premier League.

Georgy Saralidze. Exclusively to VK.