The Russian football player at the end of his career decided to combine his profession with illegal activities. Remaining a respected veteran for fans, he became a violator of the law for law enforcement agencies. It was not possible to increase the capital earned in football with impunity.

Ruslan went to jail and disappointed the mentors.

“Bolshevik” was not hidden

The ex-football player of Rubin, Mordovia, Arsenal and a number of other professional football teams Ruslan Mukhametshin broke into the news agenda three years after the end of his sports career. To return increased attention to his own person, the former athlete did not mark any significant coaching success, did not light up as a football agent, and did not even commit some stupidity that could be described by the capacious foreign word “hype”. Alas, the FNL champion was involved in a criminal case – he received 1.6 years in prison and a fine of 800 thousand rubles for organizing a network of underground casinos.

The investigation established that Mukhametshin, along with three of his accomplices, was actively operating in the illegal sector from 2017 to 2020. In Saransk and Kovylkino, the company organized underground casinos, which they tried to disguise as points of legal bookmakers. The accomplices themselves, in conversations with each other, called the establishments “teahouse” and “Bolshevik”. But it was not possible to hide the illegal enrichment scheme from the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB.

It is curious that during the noted period, Ruslan defended the colors of Saransk “Mordovia” as a player, and then was a member of the club’s coaching staff. He showed his bright side to football fans, delighting with goals scored. The dark side of Mukhametshin, as determined by the investigation, involved the inhabitants of the republic in the forbidden.

Photo: © Epsilon / Stringer / Getty Images Sport / Gettyimages.ru

Based on the court verdicts, we can conclude that the athlete was not the most persistent violator in his company, but at the same time not the most harmless. One of the members of the criminal community, Denis Romanov, was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison and a fine of 800,000 rubles. Another partner Sergei Rozhkov avoided prison, limiting himself to a fine of 300 thousand rubles and 10 months of corrective labor. He actively contributed to the investigation, exposing his former colleagues, and therefore received concessions. The third accomplice Anton Kuzenkov, like Mukhametshin, was sentenced to one and a half years in prison and a fine of 800 thousand rubles.

“I hardly wanted to make money like that”

After the completion of the investigation and trial, it is not possible to somehow try to justify the football player, however, people who knew Mukhametshin are sincerely surprised how he managed to get involved in a dubious undertaking.

– Mukhametshin is a sane person, so I don’t understand what prompted him to take such a step. I never noticed any manifestations and craving for games behind Ruslan. His social circle didn’t stand out either. I am surprised and disappointed that Mukhametshin, after his career as a football player, went down this path, – Vladimir Bibikov, the former coach of Mordovia, said in an interview with Sport24.

The ex-rubin coach Rinat Bilyaletdinov, who was extremely surprised at the news that his former ward was sent to jail, did not notice any addictions to the football player.

– Did he have gambling tendencies when he was at Rubin? No, it wasn’t even close. I don’t know what the players were doing outside the football field, but there were definitely no hints of gambling, ”Championship” quotes Bilyaletdinov.

– Ruslan did not legally calculate his possibilities, he thought that if he simply rented out the premises, then the blame would not fall on him. Did he know what was going on in the rooms? According to him, he did not know. He decided to invest the money earned in football in these premises, he hardly wanted to earn money in this way, ”Fyodor Shcherbachenko, ex-mentor of Mordovia, said in an interview with Sport24.