BOULDER, Colorado -- Baikal-Energia Irkutsk's leading scorer Alexander Nasonov will not be re-signing with the club, the team's managing director Pavel Levitin said Thursday, as reported by the website Bandynet.ru.
Nasonov has reportedly been in negotiations with league champions Dynamo Moscow. This would be the second major star Dynamo has snatched away from Baikal since rejoining the top league in 2005 - Yevgeny Ivanushkin has scored 206 goals since leaving Irkutsk, including a league-leading 66 this past season.
As for replacing Nasonov and his 49 goals, Levitin said the team was in negotiations to acquire a few midfielders, one forward, and a defender. But he added that he could not divulge their names as they were under contract until the end of the month with their current clubs.
"We don't have the same resources that the soccer club 'Zvezda' has," Levitin said, referring to the fact that there is no planned increase in the club's budget. Over the past year, the team has slashed its payroll, which led to the major exodus of players last fall. And the current administration of the Irkutsk Region, especially governor Alexander Tishanin, has been much more interested in improving Zvevda Irkutsk, perennially mired in Russia's third-tier soccer league, than in supporting Baikal-Energia.
Baikal dropped from second to fifth in the east division standings this season, and they have the potential now to drop further, perhaps even out of playoff contention, if critical holes are not filled. And with the arrival of former Russian national team coach Vladimir Yanko in Kemerovo, Kuzbass looks to continue its domination of the division. The best that we can hope for is perhaps that Baikal won't slip behind regional rivals Lesokhimik and Metallurg.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment