Promes under house arrest: why Spartak covers for a criminal

The Dutch prosecutor’s office has already requested Quincy’s extradition.

While all Russian football fans are rejoicing at the long-awaited resumption of the national championship after a long winter break, Spartak has found itself embroiled in another high-profile scandal. Which, perhaps, might not have happened.

“A fact is the most stubborn thing in the world,” Woland said to Berlioz’s head in Mikhail Bulgakov’s immortal work. And it is the facts that will allow us to try to understand what is happening with Spartak and its striker, the Dutch loyalist Quincy Promes.

On one side of the scale are the footballer’s undeniable services to the people’s team. The best scorer of Spartak in the history of the Russian Championship, the best scorer among foreign players in the history of the club, the record holder for the number of matches played among foreign players, the best scorer of the 2017/2018 season, the scorer of the winning goal in the final of the Russian Cup 2022, the favorite of the red-and-white fans and the main team’s scoring power.

On the other – a year and a half in prison by decision of the Dutch justice for attacking a cousin with a knife, an incomprehensible story of either beating his wife or participating in a fight in Ibiza, which also ended in trial, six years in prison for participating in the smuggling of almost one and a half tons cocaine.

And to top it all off, he was detained at Dubai airport by local police on February 29, 2024 for escaping from the scene of an accident while Spartak was boarding a plane to fly to Russia. For this offense, he may also face up to three years in prison.

These are the facts.

Now, returning to Woland, “we are interested in the future, and not in this already accomplished fact.”

Currently, according to media reports, Promes is under house arrest in Dubai, awaiting trial. The Dutch prosecutor’s office, taking advantage of this fortunate opportunity, has already requested Quincy’s extradition to serve a prison sentence in accordance with court decisions.

And here it is appropriate to ask two questions: what does the most popular Russian football club think about this (let’s not be offended) and why does it need a player who has such obvious problems with the law. Of course, it is premature to talk about his final guilt, since appeals have been filed and it is necessary to wait for a decision on them, but the facts remain facts.

The answer to the first question is quite simple – you just need to read the official statements of Spartak. But for some reason it’s impossible to find them on the team’s official resources. There have been only good things on the site about Promes over the past year. On official pages on social networks it’s the same. There are “official statements” that the red-white press service sends to some media outlets, the essence of which briefly boils down to the following: “Until guilt is conclusively proven, it is premature to talk about specific decisions.” They promised to punish me for missing the match with Zenit – to apply disciplinary measures. Which ones were also not specified.

But everything could have been resolved back in January 2023, when Promes did not go to the pre-season training camp with Spartak in the Emirates and Turkey, since the investigation into drug smuggling and an attack on a relative was already underway at that time. At the beginning of March 2023, the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation refused to assist Spartak in obtaining Russian citizenship for Promes due to possible problems with the law for the football player. Nevertheless, the team did not refuse the player’s services, and in December 2023 his contract with the club was extended “automatically” until the summer of 2025.

And here it is appropriate to try to answer the second question: why does Spartak need such a “problem” player? After all, keeping an athlete on the roster who constantly, willy-nilly, finds himself embroiled in various scandals means constantly being at the epicenter of these scandals. Is the desire to win a championship or Cup really so great that the presence on the team of a person who was actually found guilty of smuggling not a couple of grams, but almost one and a half tons of hard drugs, is not a problem at all? A person who, knowing what problems he has with the law, still manages to get into an accident and escape, and then, in fact, abandon his team a couple of days before the most important match with Zenit? What else needs to happen to Promes for the management of Spartak to finally find the courage to break his contract, no matter how great his services to the club and our football may be? The leaders of the red and white must, of course, answer these questions themselves. So as not to continue to play football according to concepts.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29229 dated March 5, 2024

Newspaper headline:
Why does Spartak cover up a criminal?