The Ministry of Sports refused to help the football player Promes in obtaining Russian citizenship

The Ministry of Sports refused to apply for Russian citizenship to the Dutch footballer of Spartak Quincy Promes, said Sports.ru with reference to the head of the press service of the club Dmitry Zelenov. The decision of the ministry is related to the ongoing criminal proceedings in the Netherlands involving the player.

“In November last year, we really prepared a petition to the Ministry of Sports. It was a request to send materials to the relevant competent authorities, which decide on granting citizenship. The refusal to send materials is due to the fact that in the Netherlands the consideration of cases in which Quincy Promes is involved is ongoing. One of them is almost completed, in the second Quincy is neither a suspect, nor even a convicted one,” said Mr. Zelenov.

The Dutch prosecutor’s office intends to interrogate Mr. Promes as a witness and insists on his personal participation in the process, the head of the Spartak press service said. At the same time, the department refuses to provide guarantees that the personal participation of a football player will not be associated with a restriction of freedom. “Perhaps this is due to the fact that, being a well-known person in the Netherlands, Promes lives and works in Russia – in any case, this is the impression that the Dutchman’s lawyers have,” suggested Mr. Zelenov.

Upon completion of the processes in the Dutch courts, the Moscow club intends to ask the Ministry of Sports to reconsider the application for the citizenship of Mr. Promes. “We believe that Promes has made a significant contribution to the development of Russian sports, and, in addition, he himself has a desire to become a citizen of the Russian Federation,” Dmitry Zelenov summed up.

Quincy Promes is 31 years old, he is a graduate of the Ajax Amsterdam Academy. The footballer began his professional career at Twente in 2012. In the summer of 2014, the midfielder moved to Spartak Moscow. Over the four years of his career in the camp of the red and white (115 matches), the Dutchman scored 59 goals. The player ended up in the Russian club again in 2021. For two years outside of Russia, Promes managed to play for Ajax and the Spanish Sevilla.

In December 2020, it became known that the football player risks being imprisoned in the case of a knife attack on an unnamed relative. In June 2022, the athlete was ordered to pay compensation to him, while the prosecutor’s office continued to investigate the case.

On January 11, the Dutch AD reported that Quincy Promes was suspected of transferring €250,000 to Surinamese drug dealer Pete Wortel, who was previously detained in the Netherlands. According to the publication, the amount paid was a debt for the theft of a large consignment of cocaine in July 2019. Vortel denies any connection with the footballer.

Read more about the scandals around Quincy Promes – in the material “Kommersant FM” “In Russia, the career of Quincy Promes is not in danger”.

Grigory Leiba