Russian mafia claims UEFA victory - surely not?

The Tambov Gang from Saint Petersburg is an enthusiastic criminal outfit, with smelly fingers crammed into lots of dirty pies. There have been whispers of drug trafficking, contract killing, and now one of their key Spain-based activists, Gennadios Petrov, is caught up in a football scandal, with mutterings that he paid somewhere between 20 and 40 million Euros to buy Zenit St Petersburg the UEFA Cup earlier in the year. According to an investigation by high profile Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon (the one who made General Pinochet move to Surrey), wiretaps on the Russian gang as they hatched their dastardly plots in various Spanish cities gave the impression that Bayern Munich in the semi-final and Rangers in the final were both the recipients of Eastern European generosity.

Regardless of how much money these people of the night had access to, however, nobbling a top professional side is no walk in the park. While conspiracy theorists will be salivating at the prospect of a new mystery to pick over, the sharp-eyed gentlemen of the press detected no apparent wrong doing at the time.

In the first leg in Munich Zenit drew 1-1, equalising a Franck Ribery penalty (which he missed at first, although scored with the rebound) with a Bayern own goal, before walloping the Germans 4-0 at home (highlights featured above). At 38-years-old and long past his best, Kahn had a howler in goal, but even the subsequent match reports alluded to a fantastic Russian performance, as opposed to a bad German one (”The Russian champions proved too strong for Bayern,” said Sky Sports; “Zenit St Petersburg secured passage to their first-ever European final in emphatic fashion,” read ESPN; Zenit “outclassed” Munich, according to The Telegraph).

Also worth bearing in mind - 20 to 40 million Euros wouldn’t even get you a Robinho or Berbatov these days, is that honestly worth more than a big European Cup? And Russia, including a clutch of Zenit players (notably the excellent Arshavin), had a fantastic Euro 2008. Did someone pay for that too?

Zenit St Petersburg are, of course, denying everything.