Drone hit Dynamo player

Norwegian midfielder Matthias Normann, who was loaned by Dynamo from Rostov about a year ago, unexpectedly left Russia, citing a threat to his safety after recent drone attacks on buildings in Moscow City. To protect its interests, the Moscow club intends to apply to the Football Tribunal of the International Football Federation (FIFA). After that, with a high degree of probability, the case will be dealt with by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne (CAS), one of the recent decisions of which – to pay compensation to the agents of the former football player of the team Konstantin Rausch – has not yet been fulfilled by Dynamo.

The fact that Matthias Normann left Russia was announced by the general director of Dynamo Moscow Pavel Pivovarov after the match of the second round of the group stage “Ways of the RPL” of the Cup of Russia (in which Dynamo beat Krasnodar with a score of 4:3 on Wednesday). The reason for this decision, according to Pivovarov, the footballer himself called the recent drone attacks on the buildings located in the Moscow City quarter, where he lived. The club offered Matthias Normann to change his place of residence, but did not receive a positive response. Pavel Pivovarov said “RIA News”that Dynamo “together with Rostov” is preparing to challenge the player’s actions “in arbitration”.

It is the Rostov club, whose press service did not respond on Thursday to Kommersant’s request about Matthias Normann, who owns the rights to the 27-year-old midfielder, who has 12 matches for the Norwegian national team in his track record. In 2019, he bought it from the English Brighton (the transfer amount, according to Transfermakrt, was € 1.7 million). Having played 51 official matches for the Rostovites and scoring two goals, Norman was rented by Norwich, who play in the English second division, for € 2 million, but returned to Russia in 2022.

Unlike many other legionnaires who left the Russian Federation against the backdrop of a military special operation in Ukraine, Norman was not embarrassed by the Ukrainian events. In early September last year, he moved under a €1 million loan deal to Dynamo Moscow, for which he played 17 matches.

According to “RIA News”, at the end of June, Norman, who was on vacation in Cyprus and delayed his arrival in Moscow for several days, was fined for being late for a medical examination and Dynamo training camp, allegedly not going to renew his lease. Thus, the midfielder, who, according to information “RB Sport”received € 1.7 million a year in Moscow, in less than a month he would have to return to Rostov for a much more modest salary of € 0.5 million.

In May, the International Football Federation for the season extended its last year’s resolution allowing legionnaires and foreign coaches to suspend contracts with Russian clubs again in connection with a military special operation, if they have already done so. However, Norman’s case is not subject to resolution, because, having left Rostov in March last year for some time, he did not suspend the contract.

Now the footballer is actually seeking a unilateral severance of relations with the Rostovites and Dynamo. According to lawyers defending his interests, the current situation in Russia is a force majeure and justifies such a step.

“Returning to Moscow, Norman met a city that had completely changed during the summer holidays,” the player’s representatives wrote in a letter sent to Russian clubs.

A Kommersant source familiar with the situation said that Dynamo is currently preparing an appeal to the FIFA Football Tribunal, whose main function is to resolve disputes related to the implementation of the organization’s regulations, and “even in the current extremely politicized situation”, “hopes to a positive verdict.” Otherwise, the interlocutor of “Kommersant” points out, the federation will create a precedent, and the players playing in various countries with a “difficult situation” will be able to follow the example of Norman. However, the case, most likely, will not be limited to the proceedings in the FIFA Football Tribunal. The losing party will have the opportunity to apply to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne (CAS).

Meanwhile, Dynamo not so long ago already interacted with CAS on a rather notable case. The club acted as the defendant in it, and the plaintiff was agency company Golden Toys, which took part in the transfer of Konstantin Rausch from Cologne to the Moscow club in 2018. Golden Toys claimed that, according to the transfer contract, Dynamo had to pay her € 750 thousand CAS, taking her side, in addition to the principal amount, they obliged the Moscow club to compensate the plaintiff also for interest accumulated over five years. True, the payment has not yet happened, as well as the consideration of the dispute, taking into account the fresh decision of the arbitration within the framework of the Russian Football Union. Dynamo is still guided by the position of the Russian courts, which recognized the contested contract as invalid, and the priority of Russian law over international law.

Evgeny Fedyakov