Former CSKA defender Mario Fernandez decided to continue his career at Zenit

Former CSKA defender and once one of the best players in the Russian championship, Mario Fernandez, is returning to the Premier League. But now the Brazilian will play not for the army, but for Zenit. According to a number of sources, in the near future Fernandez will conclude an agreement with the club from St. Petersburg. The Russian champion took advantage of the fact that CSKA refused to pay compensation to Internacional, in which Fernandez played after parting with the red and blue.

The return of Mario Fernandez to the Russian championship, which was announced by various sources, including Brazilian ones, may well turn out to be the main event of the current, while rather quiet and inconspicuous off-season. Moreover, this story suddenly took a sharp turn. Indeed, after the player left Internacional from Porto Alegre in April, almost no one doubted that if he will return to the Premier League, then, of course, to his native CSKA>, for which he played for ten years and with which he won the championship (three times), as well as the Cup of Russia, becoming in fact a legend of the club. However, instead of Moscow, Fernandez will go to St. Petersburg.

Internacional filed financial claims against CSKA, requesting compensation for Fernandez. According to unofficial data, it amounted to a symbolic amount by modern standards – about € 360 thousand. But the army team refused to pay, as they say, on principle.

The position of the club was expressed by Communications Director Kirill Breido, who called it a surreal situation when CSKA is required to pay money for a football player who once signed a contract until the end of the 2023/24 season, but interrupted it for personal reasons. Recall that in May 2022, Fernandez decided to suspend his career and asked the leadership of CSKA to let him go to his homeland, and last winter he resumed playing as part of Internacional. Moreover, it was believed that he was in the Brazilian team on loan and still belonged to the army team.

Indeed, it would be nonsense to pay any compensation for your own player. The army team said that, in simple words, the agent of Fernandez, Jorge Machado, who not only put forward financial claims against CSKA, but also negotiated in an ultimatum form, is stirring up the water. Nevertheless, Muscovites hoped that they would still be able to find a compromise. “Now the ball is not on our side: in the current situation, everything depends on the agent and Mario’s desire to return to CSKA,” the communications director of the army club wrote on Telegram.

However, according to Brazilian journalist Fabio Aleix, Fernandez’s contract with CSKA was terminated, which already means that the Russian team has lost the rights to him. Perhaps there was some legal confusion in the matter of either termination or suspension of his employment contract. CSKA, however, and in this case, you can understand. Counting on a trusting relationship with Fernandez, they believed that they could settle the issue of his return without unnecessary financial costs.

But here appeared Zenit, which skillfully took advantage of the differences in the negotiation process between CSKA and the player’s agent.

According to Aleixu, the deal to transfer Fernandez to the club from St. Petersburg will be closed in the near future, immediately after he passes the medical. “Mario thought a lot before making this decision, as he respects CSKA and its fans a lot,” the journalist said in his Telegram channel. At the same time, he said that Fernandez’s salary at Zenit would be much lower than the amounts that appeared in the media, and this, according to various sources, is from €2 million to €2.5 million per season with a two-year contract. Although, according to the R-Sport agency, a Brazilian with a Russian passport will conclude a three-year agreement with St. Petersburg for € 2 million a year. And besides, they will settle accounts with Internacional.

The piquancy of the story of the return of Mario Fernandez to Russia is added by the fact that very soon CSKA and Zenit will meet in the Russian Super Cup, and then they will have to compete in the championship. The army team has already given a sarcastic comment about the transition of their former defender to Zenit: “Now everything has fallen into place, and incomprehensible moments have been explained.” In CSKA, to put it mildly, they are disappointed with the behavior of Fernandez, who, having terminated the contract, actually promised to return. On the other hand, the red-blue saved money, and it is not a fact that a respected and, no doubt, a qualified craftsman is now such a reliable asset for large investments. In two months, Fernandez will turn 33 years old, and after leaving CSKA he had almost no playing practice: he played only five matches for Internacional.

Alexander Ilyin