It’s not a great summer for Rubin Kazan so far. They’re already out of Europe and stadium operator has filed a lawsuit against the club, claiming they haven’t been paying for 2 years.

The relationship between Rubin Kazan and the public operator of Ak Bars Arena (previously Kazan Arena) hasn’t been easy from the very start. Over the years, Rubin had to leave the stadium a few times and currently the relation seems as poor as the quality of grass at the former World Cup venue.

© Стадион Казань Арена

This summer, the field is of particularly low quality, though issues of this nature are nothing new in Kazan. One of Rubin’s players even asked for firings of people responsible for the situation, while head coach Leonid Slutsky has recently demanded an intervention from the Tatarstan government.

It seems to have been too much to bear for Ak Bars Arena. The stadium’s press service replied with a statement, reminding Rubin that the field may have been better if the club began paying for stadium use.

© Malika338

Note that the club has not paid for the use of Ak Bars Arena for the second year already, having accumulated about 40 million debts. Despite this, the stadium regularly fulfils its obligations to the club and does not interfere with the games. the statement reads.

Just two days afterwards, on August 10, the stadium filed a lawsuit against Rubin, registered in the Tatarstan Arbitration Court on August 12. So far the case has no date of proceedings, but the amount owed is publicly known. Ak Bars Arena is demanding RUB 30.85 million (€355,000) for overdue payments.

The lawsuit was filed almost at the same time when Rubin was knocked out of UEFA Conference League in 2nd qualifying round. At least for now fans don’t have to think about moving back to Tsentralnyi Stadion again. Leonid Slutsky assured everyone that by mid-September the field should be decent enough to play again.

Author: MK