By David Gold
August 7 – Zhemchuzhina Sochi are the latest professional Russian league club to fold as a result of financial difficulties, and will now drop out of the first division.
On the club website, they said “club President Dmitry Yakushev told the players that Zhemchuzhina will no longer be able to play in the national league.”
Sochi had spent big in an attempt to win promotion to the top flight in Russia, but could only finish 8th in the league last season.
With an annual budget of $30 million (£18 million/€21 million), it was hoped that the club could become one of the leading forces in Russian football.
Their liquidation comes after FC Saturn were forced to withdraw from the Premier League at the end of last season and file for bankruptcy.
In 2010 FC Moscow were wound up in similar circumstances as crippling debts finally took their toll, and Russian football authorities are hoping to reduce the reliance of top clubs on wealthy benefactors in the coming years.
The UEFA Financial Fair Play regulations being brought in are set to limit the extent to which wealthy owners such as Spartak Moscow’s Leonid Fedun, or the Gazprom oil company which own Zenit St. Petersburg, can bankroll their teams.
Sochi’s liquidation is a particular blow as the resort is set to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, and is also due to stage games during the 2018 World Cup.
The club were hoping to move into the Olympic Stadium after the Winter Olympics, so their bankruptcy will strike a blow to the legacy plans of both the Winter Olympic and World Cup Organising Committees.
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