Spartak responded to reports about the strategy to abandon legionnaires

The HEAD of the press service of the Moscow "Spartak" Dmitry Zelenov, in an interview with RBC-Sport, commented on the information that the club could completely abandon foreign players next season.

“We do not comment on someone's analytics masquerading as insiders,” he said.

On the afternoon of March 31, the Sport24 portal, without indicating the sources of information, reported that Spartak's management, due to financial problems, is considering several vectors of the club's strategic development, including the refusal of the services of foreign players from the 2022/23 season.

Now there are 12 legionnaires in the metropolitan team: defenders Samuel Gigot (will leave for Marseille after the end of this season), Ayrton (left on loan to Flamengo on March 31), Maximiliano Cofrie, midfielders Victor Moses, Quincy Promes, Christopher Martins, Oston Urunov (on loan at Ufa), Guus Teal and Jorrit Hendrix (both on loan at Feyenoord), forwards Ezequiel Ponce (on loan at Elche), Jordan Larsson and Shamar Nicholson.

Last week, a member of the executive committee of the Russian Football Union (RFU), Vladimir Afanasiev, said that the owner of Spartak, Leonid Fedun, spoke about his financial problems at a recent meeting. “He said he lost 99% of his fortune. This is his private money, it hurts his pocket,” Afanasyev said.

Zelenov called Afanasiev's words about Fedun's financial problems a free retelling. The owner of Spartak himself said that he had difficulties due to the situation in Ukraine, but this would not affect the financing of the club. “There are huge difficulties, but I continue to finance Spartak,” Fedun said.

Fedun is vice president of the oil company LUKOIL, in April 2021 he was ranked 16th in the list of the richest people in RUSSIA according to FORBES. The publication estimated his fortune at $ 11.1 billion. But now it is much less. Fedun is no longer in the top 500 of the BLOOMBERG Billionaires Index (the lower threshold there is $5.35 billion).