Today in Moscow, the president of CSKA Igor Esmantovich held a press conference. On the eve of the start of the next KHL regular season, the 57-year-old official spoke to reporters. The leitmotif of the press conference was the situation that developed around the army goalkeeper Ivan Fedotov. Here are the answers that Igor Vyacheslavovich gave to the press.
“Fedotov became an adult beyond his years”
“How was the decision made to declare Fedotov? I really would not like to delve into the legal part of this aspect. Now there will be court stuff related to the IIHF. If the appeal is not upheld, we will defend our point of view in the TAS. This is the first.
Second: it was a mutual decision between Ivan and us. I can tell that he has changed, he has become very mature, even beyond his age in a way. We easily found common ground.”
“I don’t even know who Tardif is”
“What did we base our decision on Fedotov on? Are you seriously asking this? What does it mean, what are they based on? There is a regulation. A contract is signed, it is registered in the KHL, it is registered in the FHR, the person goes out to play. All this has been observed. What should I base it on, what are you talking about?
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Does Tardif promise to open a disciplinary case against CSKA if we violate the disqualification decision? Who is it? I’m not familiar with it. Who is this man? Because I need it? I have a Russian hockey player who served in the army. He has a contract. He signed it and it was registered by the KHL and the FHR. Starting in September he will play. I don’t understand your questions. And who is Tardif… I don’t even know who he is. Who is he to me? Is he the president of the International Ice Hockey Federation? Well, go there and ask questions, why do I need it? I have rules.”
“Let’s discuss this in court”
“How do I feel about the active talks currently taking place that CSKA’s decision on Fedotov opens a ‘war’ with the NHL and now North American clubs will have the moral right to accept players on their existing contracts in the KHL? Legally, I don’t take these conversations seriously, because the war with the NHL… Strange things are like that. Who needs this war? And who will fight? Many focus on the fact that someone will steal something. Who to rob? So that? Do we have that many hockey players who can play first team in the NHL? Who to rob?
As for young people leaving Russia for America, this is not a question for us or the NHL, it is a question of the psychology and upbringing of the guys who somehow dream of playing there. The memo hasn’t been around for more than a season. The Americans already refused to work with KHL more than a year ago. They could rob anyone at any time, even without Fedotov, if they wanted to. This is not on the plane of NHL teams. This is at the level of our youth, who want to go there to play. And the “war with the NHL” is very noisy – this is how it is presented in the press.
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What is your name? Sergey, I’ll just ask you a simple question: can you name at least five people in the league who can play in the starting lineup for the first 15 NHL teams. And won’t three be written? Here is the answer to your question. What kind of war? For whom? This is how it appears…
You and I need to have an understanding: we educate our guys, prepare them to play for our fans and for our team, which has unfortunately been suspended from all IIHF competition. On the way, they took away the World Youth Championship, for which we were preparing and building stadiums. It is disgusting that European officials behave like this. We will challenge it in court. We don’t agree with that.”
“As long as Dietz continues to have Kazakh status”
“Has the situation of Darren Dietz in the KHL been clarified? There is nothing new for us here as long as he remains a Kazakh. Nothing extraordinary happened to change anything. We don’t expect things to change.
Are we looking for a legionnaire? We can say that the other day we signed a three-year contract with Marcel Ibragimov. We are now adapting this contract. He is a right-handed defender born in 1997, almost our student, he played a long time in the Major Leagues. And we are working on the issue with a foreign defender, preferably right-footed. But this question requires serious consideration in relation to certain things related to the IIHF. Well, it’s not that easy to find a qualified advocate to be of use to us.”
Darren Dietz
Photo: Sergey Bobylev / TASS
“The transfer ban is a legal issue”
“What does the one-year ban imposed on CSKA from making international transfers from the IIHF mean? Is it a ban on signing any foreigner or just a foreigner from the European championships? It is most likely a legal issue. But, as I understand it, all professional foreign players who play in the Russian league and can move to the Russian club HC CSKA do not need a transfer card to register contracts.
