Club “Sibir” is trying to challenge the KHL sanctions for exceeding the limit on foreign players

The biggest Russian hockey story of the winter continued. “Sibir” filed an appeal against the decision of the Continental Hockey League (KHL) to award it four technical defeats for the matches played at the beginning of the season due to the participation of a fourth, “extra” foreign player – born in Russia, having a Russian passport, but having lived in Russia since childhood Canada defender Fedor Gordeev. The club believes that “deprivation of the right to a profession in their native country” does not contribute to the solution of “the task personally outlined by the President of Russia to counter the departure of young players abroad, including the return of those who previously left.”

KHL Club “Sibir” reported that he submitted an application to the disciplinary chamber of the Russian Hockey Federation (RHF) and the Continental Hockey League (KHL) to review the situation with the award of four technical defeats to him last week. We are talking about the loudest and most difficult story of recent months in Russian hockey.

The KHL awarded Siberia technical defeats in regular season matches that actually took place at the beginning of the season. These are the meetings “Avangard” – “Siberia”, “Barys” – “Siberia”, “Siberia” – “Barys” and “Siberia” – “Avtomobilist”. The reason given was a violation of the KHL sports regulations – the application for a single match exceeded the established limit on the number of hockey players in the status of “foreign player,” that is, the limit on foreign players. There can only be three of them on a team. In these games, exactly three players played for Siberia, officially designated on the KHL website as foreigners – Canadians Andy Andreoff, Taylor Beck and Trevor Murphy.

Siberia was let down by defender Fyodor Gordeev, who appeared there in the off-season. On the KHL website, a Russian flag is placed opposite his name. But Gordeev lived in Canada since childhood and played for local youth teams.

The KHL clarified that “after identifying the violation, an additional check was carried out on the sports citizenship of the hockey player established for the season,” “who has a Russian passport.” According to its results, “it was confirmed that Gordeev does not have the right to play for the Russian national team,” thus being a foreign player. At the same time, “the club was aware of the player’s foreign status during the application for the season.”

It’s not difficult to guess what facts the league used to interpret the question of Fedor Gordeev’s sports citizenship in this way. Several years ago, he was called up to the training camp of the Canadian junior national team, and in 2017 he was selected in the NHL draft by the Toronto Maple Leafs as a Canadian.

It cannot be said that Gordeev, who has not played for Sibir since mid-December, that is, since the start of the check, was one of the key hockey players of the Novosibirsk team: he has seven points in 40 meetings, and the utility indicator looks modest – “minus 3 ” But in any case, the consequences of the incident look serious for Siberia. In the matches for which she was punished, the team scored four points, but has now lost them. Before the emergency, the Novosibirsk team occupied ninth place in the Eastern Conference table, but had the same number of points as the eighth-placed Neftekhimik, in the last position giving the right to play in the playoffs. And before the match against Vityaz on Wednesday evening, they were already tenth, with a four-point gap from the “cup zone”.

Meanwhile, the decision of the KHL, even before the formal filing of the appeal, caused indignation among the leaders of Sibir. The club’s statement noted that the excess of the limit on foreign players that occurred in September was identified by the KHL only in December, in other words, four and a half months later, while from the beginning of the season “Gordeev actually passed through the KHL systems as a hockey player with Russian sports citizenship.” . In addition, according to Sibir, the “Russian defender” “was actually deprived of the right to a profession in his native country” and the precedent will not “contribute to the solution of the task recently outlined personally by the President of Russia to counter the departure of young players abroad, including the return of those who had previously left “

Alexey Dospehov