On July 1, criminal investigators and SOBR officers hunted the goalkeeper of the Russian national team Ivan Fedotov. Immediately several groups were distributed to different places in St. Petersburg, where the goalkeeper could be in order to detain him. This all looks like a terrible mistake.

Reached the ceiling in the KHL and was about to leave

Until July 1, Fedotov’s career developed logically: debut in the KHL in 2014 for Sibir, heyday after moving to CSKA in 2021, with whom he won the Gagarin Cup last season. Then Fedotov made his debut in the national team, with which he later won the silver of the Olympic Games. Now the Russian plans to conquer the NHL. In May, he signed with Philadelphia, which has a real problem in the goal line. However, a place at the base of Fedotov is not guaranteed, but the hockey player himself understands this. He is ready to break into the squad and even play in the farm club.

For CSKA, his departure is a problem. This is already the third goalie loss for the army team in two years: first, Ilya Sorokin flew along the Moscow-North America route, then Lars Johansson went to SKA. Now the club is losing Fedotov. Nevertheless, CSKA’s goalkeeper line is more or less strengthened. At the very least, Swede Adam Reideborn, who played only two matches less in the last regular season than Fedotov, looks like a relatively equivalent replacement for the Russian as No. 1.

What happened in Petersburg?

Law enforcement agencies were preparing to detain the goalkeeper in St. Petersburg as if he had committed some serious crime. He was literally guarded by both operatives and SOBR officers on the instructions of the military prosecutor’s office. According to the media, “there are sufficient grounds to consider Fedotov an army evader,” and this is an article of the criminal code.

A long hunt did not happen: according to the St. Petersburg press, the unsuspecting Fedotov fell into the hands of law enforcement officers at the exit from the Arena-Kupchino. He was immediately offered to go to the draft board, and the goalkeeper did not argue. In addition, Match TV managed to get through to the athlete – he answered the call, but refused to comment on the situation.

CSKA has anything to do with what happened?

Journalists immediately turned to CSKA, Fedotov’s last Russian team, for details. There they were told that they learned all the news from the media. But can the club be involved in what happened and just not admit it? According to the goalkeeper Boris Mayorov – completely.

– I think that this is the machinations of CSKA, – he said in a conversation with the “Championship”. – Vanya did not want to stay in the club, he is of military age, but let’s call him into the army. There can be no other option.

Media familiar with the situation adhere to similar versions: according to one of the Telegram channels, we can talk about the illegal termination of the contract with CSKA, which automatically makes him a evader. According to Vseprosport, Fedotov really had a conflict with the army club on the basis of leaving overseas. According to the source, “CSKA invested money in him, got him out of service, and he throws him away.”

By the way, Fedotov was going to move overseas in July, which he announced in a conversation with the media some time ago. By a curious coincidence, the unexpected arrest took place just on the first day of this month.