Transitional moment: the main RPL transfers at the end of the summer window
The transfer window will close in the Russian Premier League (RPL) on September 11. After that, the clubs will be able to strengthen their squads no earlier than winter. In the last days of the window, several significant transitions took place in the elite of our football, one of which caused a scandal: midfielder of the Samara Wings of the Soviets Ivan Oleynikov has almost officially signed a contract with Rubin Kazan, but in the end the deal fell through, and in the near future the player should be in the ranks of CSKA Moscow.
Kazan U-turn
Ivan Oleynikov, a native of Podolsk, played football at the CSKA school from the age of seven, but did not reach the main army team. In 2019, at the age of 20, he left the Red-Blues and spent the next three seasons roaming the lower leagues.
The player's time in the RPL came in 2022, when he signed a contract with Akhmat Grozny. Oleynikov quickly gained a foothold in the Premier League and in 2024 joined Krylia Sovetov, signing a three-year agreement with them. Ivan became one of the leaders of the Samaritans and helped them stay in the elite of Russian football last season. At the beginning of this season, he scored three goals in the first six rounds.
Back in the summer, the media constantly reported on the interest in Oleynikov from top clubs. He was especially actively talked about in the context of Lokomotiv, which sold its leaders for a lot of money — Alexey Batrakov, Artyom Karpukas and Dmitry Vorobyov.
However, as early as the end of August, information appeared in a number of Telegram channels that Ivan's transfer to Loko was stalled due to the tough negotiating position of Boris Rotenberg, CEO of Railwaymen, who did not agree to the terms of the player's salary and lifting. Allegedly, the club offered a salary of 4 million rubles per month and 20 million rubles in lifting fees. The footballer's agents insisted on 5 million and 50 million rubles, respectively.
As a result, last week it became known that Oleynikov's priority was Rubin. On September 5, in the home match of the seventh round of the championship against Krasnodar, the football player made two assists and helped the Wings to win back from 0:2 and achieve a draw (2:2), which led to the first loss of points by the southern club in the current draw.
Immediately after the game, Oleynikov said in a flash interview that it was his last match for the Samara team, but did not name his future club. On the evening of September 6, Rubin publicly announced that Ivan had flown to Kazan and posted a photo of the player with the team's T-shirt. The club said that the midfielder had to undergo a medical examination before signing the contract.
The next day, Oleynikov did not show up for a medical checkup and left Kazan. There were insider reports in the media and Telegram channels that CSKA had intervened in the deal and intercepted the player. Rubin officially announced the cancellation of the transfer.
"Ivan Oleynikov, despite the previously reached agreements on his transfer, refused to join our club. We shook hands, agreed on everything both with the football player's side and with the Krylia Sovetov club. Our club respected all these agreements, unlike the player's side. Oleynikov had a medical checkup scheduled in Kazan today, but he did not show up. Later, the player notified our club that he had decided not to sign the contract, reneging on previously reached agreements," Rubin wrote on his resources.
As the insider Ivan Karpov reported in his Telegram channel, CSKA joined the fight for Oleinikov after the Krylia match with Krasnodar. Like Rubin, the army offered Samaritans 100 million rubles in transfer money. At the same time, they significantly improved the personal conditions of the player compared to the Kazan team: 120 million rubles in cash instead of the 70 million offered by Rubin, and a salary of 7.5 million rubles against 6 million for the club from the capital of Tatarstan.
— First of all, there are questions about the football player and his moral priorities, — Andrey Chervichenko, the former owner of Spartak, shared his opinion with Izvestia. — In my opinion, it looks ugly when you have already arrived, arrived in the city, arrived at the club office, and the next day you just left one place. Of course, I don't know to what extent Oleynikov gave his word to Rubin, but if he did and violated it, it doesn't speak well of him. On the other hand, it's his choice to respond with his reputation. Moreover, now is the time when "for money yes," as it was said in one modern song.
According to the expert, Oleynikov is not a player of the right level to even arrange such a fight for him. At the same time, clubs should not be accused of dishonest actions.
"He played well for Krylia, but in my opinion, he's not worth the money they're writing about in the media,— Chervichenko added. — It is clear why Lokomotiv was chasing him: the club is now in such a position that it will sign anything that is not well. The logic of Ruby is clear. In principle, for me, Oleynikov is a player of the Kazan team's level. Why CSKA needs him is not clear. Maybe only the army is preparing for the future tightening of the limit on legionnaires. But you can understand them: they took a player who has not signed a contract with anyone yet. It is unlikely that they had a gentleman's agreement with Rubin not to intercept their players. This did not work in the early 2000s, when I was president of Spartak, because CSKA often intercepted players, flooding them with money, while we had a slightly different idea of whether it was worth paying them too much. That's how Jiri Yarosik and Wagner Love were taken away from us. Although there were no cases when a football player who had already reached our office was intercepted from us. But here, too, Rubin could hardly have done anything. Except that there was no need to rush to publish photos of the player with the club's T-shirt until there were signatures under the documents.
CSKA has not yet officially completed the transfer of Oleynikov, but recently acquired the Algerian defender of Makhachkala Dynamo Mohamed Azzi— one of the key players of the Dagestan club.
They didn't pass due to their health
A week before the Oleynikov story, another unusual precedent for disrupting transfers happened with two Brazilians who were supposed to transfer to Dynamo Moscow. Moreover, it came to the arrival of both players in Moscow, where the club even organized a bright reception for them.
But wingers Gonzalo Plata from Flamengo and Mateus Martins from Botafogo could not pass the medical. Both were diagnosed with health problems leading to potential injuries. In an interview with Brazilian media, Plata said that he had problems with his knee, which he had never injured. The player was outraged by Dynamo's final decision.
And the management of Botafogo threatened lawsuits for disrupting the transfer of Martins. However, it is unlikely that they will achieve anything from the Moscow club, since it did not come to signing contracts with the player - usually the final signatures are placed after the medical examination in case of its successful completion.
It is worth noting that Botafogo violated the agreements itself in the first half of the summer when, at the last moment, he refused to come to Moscow for the pre-season Bratsk Cup tournament, which Dynamo is organizing jointly with CSKA.
Interestingly, Luis Baptista, the president of Flamengo, was very happy about the transfer of the Fee, when it seemed that his transfer to Dynamo was a done deal. At a board meeting, he stated that "now you don't have to run all over Rio at night and keep track of what he drinks and how much." So it turned out that the Board has very big problems not only with health, but also with discipline, including constant violations of the sports regime.
"An in—depth medical examination is a traditional procedure before a transfer," Sergei Silkin, former Dynamo head coach, explained to Izvestia. — That's what all professional clubs around the world do. Therefore, it is completely normal that Dynamo refused to make acquisitions after seeing the health problems of the players. They had the right to do so, they did not violate anything legally, and I personally have no doubt about the competence of the club's medical staff. Yes, it's a shame that we didn't strengthen the squad, but it's better than spending money with the risk of constantly injuring players.
Built bridges
Andrey Mostovoy has been playing for Zenit since 2020. During this time, he won the Russian championship with him five times and the National Cup twice. The 28-year-old midfielder was one of the leaders of the team for a long time, but in recent years he stopped getting into the starting line—up - expensive foreign players were preferred to him.
Coming on as a substitute, Mostovoy did his best to benefit Zenit. But it was clear that it was already difficult for him to compete. And last week, the St. Petersburg club loaned him out until the end of the season to the distressed Lokomotiv.
Andrey's contract with Zenit expires next summer. Therefore, it is possible that Loko will sign him as a free agent at the end of the championship. The footballer began to meet expectations immediately.
On September 6, in an away match against Baltika Kaliningrad, Mostovoy scored a goal at the end of the match and brought the Railwaymen their first victory of the season (1-0). Due to this, they rose from the relegation zone. Earlier, they acquired Sergey Babkin, a midfielder from the Samara Wings of the Soviets, in the defensive zone.
With these two transfers, Loko is trying to compensate for the breakdown of negotiations with Oleynikov and the losses of Batrakov, Karpukas and Vorobyov. At the same time, according to media reports, in the remaining days of the transfer window, the club may sign its pupil Nikolai Titkov, one of the leaders of the Kaliningrad Baltic.
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