An unprecedented scandal has unfolded in Russian football: referee Bogdan Golovko has been detained for allegedly not awarding a crucial penalty. He faces a potential prison sentence of up to seven years.
The referee, who officiated matches in the First League and lower divisions, is suspected of influencing the results of the Russian championship. According to RBK, police apprehended Golovko recently.
The case specifically concerns the match between Moscow`s Torpedo and KAMAZ from Naberezhnye Chelny on May 24. Golovko failed to award two penalties against the Moscow club`s goal. A draw or a victory in this match would have secured Torpedo direct promotion to the Russian Premier League (RPL) without needing play-offs.
Torpedo achieved this outcome with a 1-1 draw. However, the controversial refereeing attracted the attention of a commission. Experts concluded that the referee deliberately failed to award one of the two penalties. This new development in the criminal case could potentially lead to a review of the championship results.
The sports community views this as a precedent, notes Mikhail Tyapkov, deputy chief editor of the Sport24 portal:
For the first time, a purely footballing situation has been moved into the criminal realm, where decisions made during a football match are directly being attributed as blame. But again, we don`t yet know all the nuances related to the evidence; it`s clear this is a development in the unfolding `Torpedo` case, which began with the arrest of one of the club`s owners, Leonid Sobolev, and former general director Valery Skorodumov. That`s where this story started, and it concerned an unsuccessful attempt at bribery. Here, the issue is that some decisions were made in favor of Torpedo. If previously one could doubt whether decisions related to the club`s management would affect Torpedo`s fate itself, if indeed it is proven at the МВД level and in court that there was bias in favor of Torpedo last season, then, as I understand it, this definitively puts an end to Torpedo`s prospects in principle. The matter concerns a successful attempt to pressure referees in favor of Torpedo. I think everything indicates that Torpedo will not start the RPL season, but that`s my personal forecast. Undoubtedly, referees will be more cautious because a precedent is being set in any case. But on the other hand, the problem has always been not the lack of a legal basis or the capabilities of investigative bodies, but the fact that this is a closed football community; if there are parties who can come to an agreement among themselves, there are no ways to unravel this case and gather evidence, these aren`t state officials.
Despite the not-so-ideal reputation, the punishment for the referee`s alleged misconduct is excessively severe, believes Aleksey Kylasov, professor at the Department of Sports Management at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, Doctor of Cultural Studies:
In this case, it`s really about a general trend of brutality: everyone wants to show strength, and the fact that there are some claims against a specific referee influences it to a lesser extent; to a greater extent, it`s the overall approach, although it`s an excessive measure because internal sports matters are unlikely to pose a threat to public order, and applying criminal prosecution for cheating in sports is, in my opinion, excessive. Sports are entirely made up of influence groups; even within any club, there are different groups.
33-year-old Bogdan Golovko, a native of Volgograd, had officiated matches in lower leagues and came to media attention after a scandal in Grozny, where dissatisfied fans attacked him on the field after a youth team match.
The new season of the Russian Premier League is set to start next week. Torpedo returned to the elite division after a two-year break, but this sporting achievement was overshadowed even earlier. Club owner Leonid Sobolev and director Valery Skorodumov were suspected of bribing a referee. The name of the referee was not disclosed at the time. Sobolev and Skorodumov are currently in pre-trial detention.
Sources told RBK that the leadership of the Russian Football Union (RFS) is actively cooperating with law enforcement agencies «to combat corruption in the refereeing corps.»
