Luciano Spalletti: Match squad list for CSKA game has been publicly available for eleven hours, but nobody told me I was wrong

Zenit head coach Luciano Spalletti has revealed how the club has committed the breach of the disciplinary regulations which cost them a technical defeat in the game against CSKA on Day 4 of the Russian Premier League.

The match ended in a 1:1 draw, but it soon surfaced that Spalletti did not include any ‘home-grown’ players into the match squad. Current Premier League regulations require the clubs to have at least one such player, born not earlier than 1990 and holding Russian citizenship, at each game.

«I decided not to take a young player to the bench as far back as Wednesday, thinking I will pay the fine myself out of my salary. In the same way they deduct money from it when I’m fined for going outside of the technical area, etc. I thought it was a purely technical question, I made my choice as a coach and didn’t find it necessary to inform the club’s management,» Spalletti told to Fontanka.

«However, in order to be scrupulous I have notified the team’s administrator and all my assistants, including the Russian members of the staff – Vladislav Radimov, Mikhail Biryukov, and Nikolay Vorobyov. Moreover, I have been scrupulous enough to ask Radimov to call the man in charge of all documentation in our club. The latter has confirmed we will only pay a fine.»

«After the Saturday training I posted our match squad list up on a wall at our training ground, as we always do. It has been hanging there for eleven hours, everybody has seen it – my assistants, technical staff, administrators – but nobody told me I was doing something wrong.»

Zenit has been awarded technical defeat for the game against CSKA, as well as a fine of 200 thousand roubles.