The SKA salary fund exceeds one billion at the rate of 900 million. How can a club fit on the roof?
Aug 3, 2023 10:15 am UTC Audio Version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
The Petersburgers have a lot of players and consequently a lot of options, but one combination seems more logical than the others.
The SKA’s leisurely attempts to fit under the salary cap is one of the main plots of the Russian offseason. At first, the army team, with real generosity, issued large contracts to the leaders of other clubs, but in July it had to start moving in the opposite direction and signal several high-profile players to leave. As a result, Dmitry Yashkin, Nikita Gusev, Igor Ozhiganov, Damir Zhafyarov, Roman Rukavshnikov and a dozen other young hockey players left the team, and on the eve of SKA they announced a break with Nikolai Prokhorkin. However, even after such purification, the club’s payroll does not comply with the regulations.
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According to data previously published by Sport-Express, today the amount of contracts at SKA is 1.147 million rubles, with a cap of 900 million. An insignificant part falls on agreements with two young players – Matvey Michkov and Ivan Fedotov. Each of them will receive 15 million, and due to the age of hockey players, their money will be withdrawn under the ceiling. Also, Artyom Shvets-Rogovoy’s salary is not taken into account, since he will miss the next season entirely due to injury.
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At the same time, the amount of the total payment changed after the club renewed the agreements with Emil Galimov and Ivan Zinchenko. The first, according to informants from other publications, moderated appetites from 40 to 25 million, and the second, on the contrary, expected an increase.
In total, the total salary fund of St. Petersburg residents at the moment is 1,067 billion, plus Zinchenko’s contract, which is unlikely to exceed 30 million. That is, to comfortably enter the required bar, the army team needs to get rid of the obligation to pay about 200 million more.
Obviously, beginners can feel at ease. It’s hard to imagine what you have to do to be disappointed in a couple of weeks of preseason. In addition, it is logical to assume that within the next week, during the pre-season tournament in Sochi, SKA will not carry out transfer maneuvers to check all doubters in close-to-combat conditions.
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However, the list of main exit candidates is already clear. You can bet with the bank for a large amount that one of the three goalkeepers will leave the team, and almost certainly Vladislav Podyapolsky (salary 45 million) will become him. Over the course of last season, SKA removed the goalkeeper from Severstal, hoping to solve occasional problems on the last frontier with his help. But the bet did not work out, Podyapolsky did not keep the bar moving from the middle peasant to the top club and entered the playoffs as a substitute.
The positions of Mikhail Pashnin (salary 45 million) are especially precarious. The 34-year-old defender fell out of favor even in the regular season: after a nightmare mistake in the away game with Avangard, he was sent to the reserve and, according to rumors, even sent back to St. Petersburg.
Pashnin was able to remember this match for a long time.
Video
Avangard fought back four times in the match with SKA and snatched the win, breaking the losing streak
For a long time and persistently, the news about the possible exchange of Mikhail Vorobyov (salary 50 million) leaked to the press. For SKA, Kaprizov’s partner in the bronze youth team did not become a backbone center forward, but Avangard, which has fallen into an ongoing personnel crisis, really needs him. In July, various sources reported the Omsk club’s interest in the 26-year-old.
Another contender for the exit is Danila Moiseev. In April, it was believed that the striker would be sent to the same Avangard in exchange for Arseniy Gritsyuk. This didn’t happen, but there’s no reason for SKA to hold on to a hockey player. In 22 games of the regular season, the player with a salary of 35 million has only one assist, he did not participate in the playoffs.
The four of Podyapolsky, Pashnin, Vorobyov and Moiseev “eat” 175 million, with Zinchenko’s previous contract for two million, this would be enough to settle the payment. But now the army team may need to “ditch” another small contract.
