Novaya Gazeta and Oleg Zhuravsky, the executive director of the National Association of Bookmakers renew our action titled “Fair Play”. Reminding, on Thursdays, a few days before the next round we shall be monitoring the integrity of the matches in the Premier League and shall be forecasting each game jointly with the leading experts from the Association.       

Last year we instituted the “Stainless Ball” Award that is given annually to the most honest club of the Premier League. The Khimky club from near-Moscow region was the first holder of the prize.   

Like it was last year, we are beginning this column not with the first rounds, as bookmakers must be based on something, and that is difficult before a draw is formed. Besides, the start of the championship is seldom shaded with “bizarre” matches. 

In this new season, however, the statement was disproved by the reality. First, the English stake center Betfair took the match of the 3rd round - where Terek (from city of Grozny) got a better hand of Spartak (from the city of Nalchik) - to be oddly predictable. Then Sergei Yuran, mad at the actions by the referee Alexei Nikolaev in the match vs. Luch-Energy from the city of Vladivostok, required that all the matches of his club were serviced by foreign referees. The culmination of the scandal series occurred in Grozny where the referee Alexander Gvardis was threatened in his rest room during the break. That was the match Terek vs. TsSKA and the man threatening him looked like a State Duma deputy Adam Delimkhanov.