The Russian handball federation (ФГР) has requested a criminal investigation against eight players it has sanctioned for match-fixing at the U19 European Championships in Croatia. The ФГР sanctioned Alexander Morozov (Александр Морозов – Chekhov Bears), Daniil Dmitriev (Даниил Дмитриев – CSKA-2), Georgy Kirilenko (Георгий Кириленко – SKIF), and Maxim Naidunov (Максим Найдунов – CSKA-2) with five year bans from 21 September; Nikita Gogolev (Никита Гоголев – Chekhov Bears) and Maxim Ermolin (Максим Ермолин – SKIF-2) with two year bans from the same date; and Dmitry Kandybin (Дмитрий Кандыбин – Chekhov Bears) and Dmitry Frolov (Дмитрий Фролов – CSKA-2) with bans expiring on 30 June next year.

The ФГР said a ‘psychophysiological examination’ was carried out between 7 and 28 September, before it provisionally suspended the players on 21 September. This involved a forensic expert; a specialist in the ‘diagnostics of non-verbal behaviour’, a specialist in the ‘psychodiagnostics of lies’, and a polygraph examiner. 

All 16 players agreed to undertake a polygraph test, during which they confirmed that they were not subject to any physical or psychological pressure during the investigation process. Of the 16 national team players, seven admitted their guilt (eight were sanctioned). 

‘One of the athletes provided evidence of receipt of funds from the illegal bet coordinator in the form of information from the remote banking programme’, read a statement. ‘Based on this data, the ethics commission established the roles of each person in the manipulation of match results’.

“The facts revealed by the ethics commission cause me not only outrage, but also a feeling of deep disappointment in relation to young players”, said Sergei Shishkarev (Сергея Шишкарёва), President of the ФГР, in the statement. “I previously called it a betrayal of the Motherland, this is how I feel about the egregious facts of ‘financial doping’. We are working hard to bring men’s handball out of the lingering crisis in which it has found itself in recent years. We can try to fix the sports component. However, the best technology, equipment and scientific teams are unable to instil the moral and ethical standards that make capable athletes great athletes, who defend the honour of their country. 

“At the same time, no one can say that the conditions in which young players live or train are worse than five years ago. We have seriously improved both the material supply and the technical base just to to create normal conditions for the guys. And therefore it cannot be said that all this comes from poverty and despair.

“I offered the Executive Committee a set of measures that would allow us not only to identify violators, but also to prevent similar situations in the future. This involves constant monitoring, and expansion of cooperation with bookmakers, and close interaction with other federations and the Russian Olympic Committee, since the problem obviously concerns not only handball. 

“We plan to create a permanent commission for monitoring fixing matches in the ФГР and will propose similar measures to the International and European Handball Federations. By the way, at my request, IHF President Hassan Mustafa handed over the information we collected to the International Olympic Committee.”