From Taganrog to Shali: five football clubs in southern Russia intend to get professional status at once

Professional Football League (PFL) - the third tier of Russian football - will undergo significant changes before the 2020/21 season. Instead of the five traditional zones (probably now they will be called groups), only four remain - “Center”, “West”, “Ural-Volga Region” and “South”. Vostok was eliminated, where in recent years only six clubs have competed. Now the teams of Siberia and the Far East will be distributed among other groups. Their winners, as before, will receive tickets to the Football National League (FNL).

There is a risk that the number of professional clubs in these regions will decrease even more. For example, Sakhalin is aware of financial problems. But the need for long flights will increase the costs of the eastern teams.

Difficulties of a similar nature are experienced by many old-timers of other groups. The Russian Football Union (RFU) has not yet given the go-ahead for licensing Kolomna. Last fall, the impending disbandment of Lada-Tolyatti was reported. “Syzran-2003” and Moscow “Ararat” stopped their performances in the PFL club from the Samara region. The start in the upcoming championship and other teams remains in doubt.

The island of relative prosperity in the current situation seems to be “South”. Unlike other groups, a significant increase in participants is forecasted here. However, in the next season among them will not be Vladikavkaz “Spartak”, which took the last, 16th place.

After the dissolution of the club, its staff was redirected to work at the football academy. It is quite possible that someone will find a job in Alania, which wants to rise to the FNL. And the city was not able to have two professional teams. But several teams can replenish the division at once. Among them there are both immigrants from amateur football, and created literally from scratch.

The south of Russia has always been famous for its original teams and technical masters. It is no accident that the Kuban in Soviet times was one of the training centers for the best clubs in the country in the offseason. Nowadays, a significant impetus to the development of football in the region was given by Sergey Galitsky, the owner of Krasnodar. And the stadium built with the money of an entrepreneur was rightfully included among the best in the world.

The likely arrival of new teams from the Krasnodar Territory, Rostov Region, Stavropol and Chechnya to the South group, of course, does not mean that any of them will accurately repeat the success of the “bulls”. However, such a tendency, of course, can contribute to the expansion of the geography of football, to the involvement of local boys in the section. 

For more than half a century, the 250,000th Taganrog has been represented in the lower leagues of the USSR and Russia “Torpedo” (previously - the club named after Artyom, “Zenith” and “Tractor”). In this team in the 1990s, Dmitry Kirichenko and Igor Ledyakhov first made themselves known. In 2004, it ceased to exist. And in 2006, FC Taganrog was established. It lasted until 2015, when it closed due to financial problems.

The head of the city administration Andrei Lisitsky announced the revival of professional football in Taganrog at a press conference on December 27, 2019. The general sponsor was Forte, whose name passed to the team.

In January of this year, the Taganrozhites held their first test matches at the training camp in Sochi. The coaching post was entrusted to a native of the city, formerly known forward of Dynamo Kyiv, Kuban and the Russian national team Alexei Gerasimenko. The latter assured that "the goals and objectives are serious and quite feasible, and the team will appear as a combat unit in the new season."

The club already has an official website and an account on the Transfermarkt statistics portal. In the roster, however, so far there are only two acquisitions.

In May, Forte-Taganrog was licensed in the PFL. At the same time, two other potential newcomers, Tuapse and Essentuki, were previously approved in the league.

In favor of the emergence of PFC in the Stavropol Territory speaks, at least, the presence of good infrastructure. During the 2018 World Cup, the Nigeria national team was based in Essentuki for three weeks. Saying goodbye to the resort, Superorlov mentor Gernot Rohr admitted that, in addition to the stadium, he liked “friendly and welcoming people, beautiful nature, mineral springs”. Subsequently, Anji, Mashuk and other clubs trained at the Essentuki Arena, opened two years ago.

So far, only one player is listed in the Essentukov’s Transfermarkt application - defensive midfielder Alexander Arsoev, known for playing for Vladikavkaz Spartak. The club has no official website yet, as well as signs of activity in social networks.

In the 2019 season, Tuapse played in the championship of the Krasnodar Territory among amateur groups, where they failed to achieve significant success: the team took only eighth place in the 4th group (or 38th among all participants in the tournament). Nevertheless, the chances of the club becoming a member of the PFL are quite high. In May, the Football Federation of the Krasnodar Territory filed a petition with the RFU for admission of Tuapse to licensing.

“The emergence of a new professional club will contribute to the development and popularization of football in the Krasnodar Territory, the construction of a new football infrastructure,” it was said in an address addressed to the RFU Secretary General Alexander Alaev.

According to the authors of the initiative, the appearance of the team in the third-ranking league in Russia "will have a positive effect on grassroots football." According to available information, the former sports director of the Kuban Yevgeny Kryachik will be engaged in the formation of the Tuapse squad.

Another prospective newcomer to the group - Vainakh from Shali in recent years has simultaneously played in the championship of Russia among amateur teams (third division, fourth in terms of league) in the SFD-SKFO zone and the Chechen championship, where he is a multiple holder of the title. A team with this name performed in the Soviet period in the championship of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where it achieved success. In 1991, he managed to get into the second league of the USSR. In that championship, a number of players who became famous in the future played for the Shalintsev: Timur Dzhabrailov, Isa Baitiev and others. The next season, however, was the last for Vainakh in that lineup.

The revival of Vainakh took place in the mid-2000s. In the season 2019/20, for the first time since the 1992/93 draw, the club started in the Russian Cup. In the final table of the championship of Russia in the third division, the Shalins finished on the second line, passing ahead “Aksay” from the Rostov region. According to some reports, Vainakh will enter the structure of the Grozny Akhmat, which seems to be a logical decision from a financial point of view.  

As for Aksay, last year he won the final tournament for the teams of the third division in Sochi. It was believed that the team had outgrown the amateur level and was ready to start among professionals. In October, the founders registered AO “Aksai 2020 Football Club”. However, according to unofficial data, the main sponsor had financial difficulties due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The start date of the championship 2020/21 has not yet been announced. According to the trainer of the Makhachkala “Legion Dynamo” Akhmad Magomedkamilov, the season in the South group starts in mid or late August.