The former president of Torpedo, Ilya Gerkus, admitted that he was happy for the ex-president of the Chertanovo Academy, Nikolai Larin, whom the court released from custody.

– In general, the case of Nikolai Larin made a very difficult impression. After all, it is obvious that in this way he acted in the interests of the football school, in the interests of the Chertanovo club. He was not guided by the motives of personal enrichment. I hope his case will draw attention to the problems that brought to court.

Therefore, to impose such a sentence was very cruel and unjustified. I am very glad that the court went forward and commuted the sentence. And I am sincerely happy for Nikolai, because he literally survived in the reality in which he had to work. He was given narrow limits, he had to go beyond them. It turns out that something needs to be changed in this system.

This is not a matter of the football environment, but of the regulatory one. After all, this money was allocated by state bodies – and they also determined the justification of violations. Therefore, football people are held hostage here: they were allocated an amount and determined what they have the right to spend it on, not knowing how much money really needs to be allocated in order to have enough for everything. We need to be more flexible about this and change the existing spending rules, ”Gerkus told RT.

In September 2022, Larin was found guilty of two counts of fraud on an especially large scale and sentenced to 3 years in prison with a demand to pay 20 million rubles in favor of the Department of Sports of the City of Moscow (Moskomsport). On Wednesday, in the Moscow City Court, the prosecutor at the debate of the parties requested a toughening of Larin’s sentence to 4 years and 4 months, the defense, in turn, also challenged the verdict of the first instance.

The Moscow City Court accepted the appeal of the defense of the former director of Chertanovo and released him from custody.