MY FIRST DAY AS a player for Zenit Saint Petersburg seemed to have landed me in jail.
What? Yup, you read it correctly. My first day as a player for Zenit Saint Petersburg seemed to have landed me in jail. In other words, I was in big trouble again, only a few hours after arriving in Russia. Prison was looming and I was so not looking forward to it! My one night behind Glaswegian bars had been bad enough, but the thought of a Russian slammer was freaking me out. I’d seen footage on TV, and it was terrifying.
I was cursing like a sailor. Why the fuck do I always have to end up in this kind of shit? Why does this stuff always happen to me? How on earth is it possible? Why me, why me, why always me?
And this time it wasn’t even my fault!
My next thought was Dick. My manager. I imagined him finding out about this. He would send me straight home, no doubt about it! And he would be right, as I shouldn’t have been out at this ridiculous time of night, just a few hours before my first training session. I should have been in bed, in the Corinthia Nevsky Palace Hotel. Alone.
But I wasn’t in bed. Instead, I was somewhere on a ring road outside Saint Petersburg. Or, more to the point, next to it, and facing two coppers.
My heart was doing a John Bonham drum solo. I was so nervous. And angry. That goddamn Andrey Arshavin! Why oh why did he have to climb behind the steering wheel when he was as pissed as a parrot? I’d noticed that he was just as befuddled as his fellow passengers Igor Denisov and Aleksandr Anyokov, so, more to the point, why did I get into the car with him? And why did he continue to verbally assault the policemen?
Please, Andrey, behave!
He didn’t.
Arshavin, Russia’s number one footballer at the time, refused to calm down. He kept on screaming and, to make things worse, started to kick the police car, an old-fashioned Lada.
Here we go again, I thought to myself. Then I turned to Arshavin. ‘Please, Andrey, stop it.’ No reaction. I got scared. Really scared. ‘For Christ’s sake, Andrey, stop it!’
My brain was working overtime. What if this incident hit the papers? What if somebody from Zenit had to pick us up from the dungeon? Dick thought I was in bed, having some rest before training. He didn’t even know I was out. He would go crazy. The media would bring up my past as an alcoholic. Nobody would believe I hadn’t been drinking this time.
In the meantime, Arshavin went on and on, and kicked the police car a few more times, as if he was enjoying it. Then he started shoving one of the policemen. What an idiot!
Then, all of a sudden, the sound of muffled kicks stopped. At last, he’s calmed down, I thought. Nope, it was a bluff. Andrey hadn’t made his point yet. From that moment on, he got even more aggressive. I could hear it in his voice.
Worse still, he was joined by Aleksandr and Igor, who completed the out-of-tune boy band. I had no idea what the three of them were yelling – I’d only been in Russia for a few hours! – but I knew it wasn’t an invitation to a tea party.
Now, this could only lead to a severe retaliation. When it comes to policemen, nobody tolerates this kind of behaviour. We would get nicked for sure, the four of us. Never mind that I was as sober as a newborn baby, I had been in the car – front seat. Maybe they held me responsible for, well, everything. What the hell did I know about the Russian law?
So that was it. The ink on my contract wasn’t even dry and I would be on a plane back to Holland again. From Russia with grief. Yeah, I saw the three of them looking at me, with their it’s-gonna-be-all-right looks. But that was exactly what worried me.
But guess what? It was gonna be all right! Different country, different rules. If you’re a famous footballer in Russia you can get away with murder (well, almost). So, instead of arresting us or beating the shit out of us with their truncheons, the cops walked away. They even apologised!
I was puzzled, to say the least. As we drove off, on our way to a strip joint called Maximus, I asked Andrey how the hell ...
‘Fernando, this is Russia,’ he said, and laughed his lungs out.
He told me that, in between all his kicking, he’d made a quick phone call to the highest police official in Saint Petersburg. He’d had his number for years, in case of a possible emergency. The top guy happened to be an avid Zenit supporter. Problem solved.
On top of that, the phone call wouldn’t even have been necessary had it been a bit brighter that night. If the patrolmen had recognised Arshavin there and then, they would have backed off immediately. In Russia Arshavin was (and still is) a God-like figure. Laws don’t apply to him.
He even managed to enter Saint Petersburg’s most exclusive nightclub wearing flip flops! It was then that I thought, where the hell have I ended up? But I also knew that this was my kinda place!
My first evening in the city had started in a very relaxed way. Cor Pot, who was staying in the same hotel as me, had invited me to a party which was being held by the Dutch Embassy on a boat. Always good for a bit of networking, Pot said. And he was right, of course. It’s always handy to know a few notables from the Netherlands.
It was a pleasant evening and I really enjoyed myself. And I didn’t touch a drop of alcohol. I couldn’t, as the club doctor, Sergey Pukhov, had given me an injection earlier that day. Drinking a drop of the forbidden stuff would have made me as sick as a dog and given me red spots all over the torso, like the best climber in the Tour de France. ‘You’re not going to like that,’ Pukhov predicted.
The aforementioned injection is illegal in many countries, due to the risks. Not so in Russia. On the contrary, it was quite common to give it to people with a severe alcohol problem. When offered one by the club, I thought it would be very ungrateful to refuse. After all, Zenit had rescued me from my Scottish isolation. It was time to give something back, as you say.
Did I really need it? Well, the fact that I’d had my last pint in South Africa all those weeks ago proved that I wasn’t really craving it. On the other hand, it wasn’t unlikely either that one day I would fall for the temptation of Miss Vodka. So, I reckoned I’d better kill the passion in advance – with an injection that didn’t last one night but, gulp, a whole year!
Pot hadn’t had a shot. That was obvious, given the amount of hooch he was enjoying, so when he realised he was inebriated he left the party boat. He said he was off to bed but that I could stay if I wanted: the party wasn’t over yet. ‘No worries about getting back,’ he assured me. ‘Any cab driver will know our hotel. Otherwise, give me a call, pal.’
I had a better idea. My Norwegian teammate Erik Hagen had been trying to reach me a few times that evening. As I hadn’t answered, he’d sent me a text message. The entire team were having a meal downtown and they would like me to drop by and introduce myself.
Excellent idea! I decided to join them. Cor Pot agreed it would be a good opportunity to team up with the guys, and as we said goodbye he told me he was looking forward to seeing me at training the next morning. And he gave me the smile of a gentleman.
Hagen told me where to find the rest of the lads: in Loge, a Serbian fish restaurant. Top place! I would become a regular there in the months to come. Just as I would frequently visit The Flying Dutchman, a seventeenth-century vessel that hosted wild theme parties with the most stunning models. But I’m saving that for later ...
A few minutes later I was united with the rest of the squad. And my jaw dropped to the floor when I saw them or, more precisely, the table they were sitting at. It was covered with expensive champagne and whisky bottles – most of them empty. No need to ask where the liquid had ended up: inside the players. What a crazy mob!
Don’t forget there was training scheduled for, er, a few hours later.
I sat down and ordered a Coke. It didn’t even make me feel uncomfortable, to tell you the truth. It gave me a boost! I felt strong among all these weak pissheads.
I had always been told that the Russians were gruff. Well, not these guys! They made me feel welcome from the very first moment. Arshavin told me this was their true character – and among all the empty bottles, he high-fived me.
Arshavin, Denisov and Anyukov became my buddies, despite the fact that they hardly spoke any English. They did know about my past though. I think they found it quite interesting. After a while, they managed to speak the language a lot better, which was a huge relief, as my Russian lessons sucked. Together with Cor Pot I attended a crash course, but without much success. All those Cyrillic characters drove me up the wall, and I didn’t finish the lessons. But it wasn’t a big deal, as pretty soon I knew how to speak Russian football lingo – and that was basically all I needed. And off the field, there were always my fellow footballers from the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Belgium, South Korea and Norway who did know how to make themselves understood in English.
Gradually, more and more Russian players started to speak the language – thanks to Dick. Instead of him learning Russian, he sent them on an English course.
The players didn’t object. On the contrary, they loved it! They had two lessons a week, but they fancied the idea of having them each and every day. Eventually the lectures became so popular that Dick had to do something about it.
As it turned out, it wasn’t the education itself that the boys loved so much. It was the teacher. An absolute stunner. And they shagged her. One at a time.
When Dick found out he quickly replaced her – probably with an ugly bloke – and all of a sudden going to English class wasn’t that popular any more!
Much later on, players like Vladislav Radimov complained about the fact that Dick didn’t speak a word of Russian. I thought that was chush’ sobach’ya – ‘bullshit’ in Russian. I could fully understand Dick’s decision. Russian is a very complex language. You don’t learn it just like that; it takes years and years. According to Radimov, Dick couldn’t pass on emotions via an interpreter. No emotions? Look at the man’s face! Even if he had started to speak Chinese, you would still understand what he meant! It didn’t surprise me though that, of all people, it was Radimov who came up with this. He was always against us.
So, back to the fish restaurant, which was now about to close. It was Arshavin – honest! – who came up with the idea of visiting a pole-dancing club. I had to be inaugurated! There was no objection from me, especially after they told me that in Russia, unlike in Great Britain, you were allowed to touch the girls. The thought alone sent a frisson of excitement through my body.
The only thing that worried me was the state my teammates were in. My God, they were drunk! So I suggested we take a taxi. Andrey just laughed. It wasn’t going to be a cab, but instead Anyukov’s enormous Toyota Land Cruiser. There was enough space for half a football team.
First, I thought they were joking. They could hardly walk – and that included the driver. Oh my God, he would kill himself, and me too!
In the car park I told them that maybe, maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea if Mr Coca-Cola here took the wheel. Yes, it was a bad idea, said Andrey, who climbed into the driver’s seat. And then I joined him in the passenger’s seat. Wrong, wrong, wrong! But I still did it.
After only 100 metres we heard the sirens ...
Police! On my first night in Saint Petersburg. Don’t tell me I was in trouble already.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Arshavin.
And, as I soon found out, he was right. There was no need to worry. Without any casualties we reached club Maximus, my soon-to-be second home.
That night on the highway was my initiation. It was my first experience of Russia’s corruption. ‘For sure there’s more to come!’ Arshavin said with a wink.
One thing I always had to do, they said, was to give the officers some money the moment they stopped you. Bribery, in other words.
‘And then, Fernando, everything will be all right.’
Even our team manager Fedor Lunnov gave me similar advice. ‘Always have some cash on you, Fernando. Or otherwise a Zenit shirt, or a banner. Policemen like those as well!’ But, as Fedor explained, there were certain rules. One: never give the money directly to an officer! ‘That’s too obvious. Put the cash on their dashboard, so they can take the roubles themselves.’
In order to stay as incognito as possible, I took to driving around Saint Petersburg in a Ford Focus. It was unlikely that a regular car like that would draw any attention. In a Hummer or a Ferrari the coppers would see me coming from miles away, and I didn’t want that.
No, it wasn’t a good idea to hit the streets of Saint Petersburg in my blood-red Ferrari, like I was used to in Glasgow. I even drove to Rangers matches in it. Exposing my beloved, expensive Ferrari to the Russian traffic was another thing that I didn’t fancy, given that most Russians don’t even have a driving licence! Yeah, forgeries bought for 300 euros.
Unsurprisingly car crashes were quite common. And people died in those crashes. In March 2011, hours before the UEFA Cup match against FC Twente, Marina Malafeeva, beloved wife of goalkeeper Vyacheslav Malafeev, lost her life. I wasn’t playing for Zenit any more, but it still hit me hard. Such a tragedy, she was a mother of two ... When things like that happen I’m not a hard bastard any more. When the wife of my former teammate Konstantin Zyryanov got so depressed that she jumped off the eighth floor of an apartment block, holding her four-year-old daughter, I got shivers all over. At these times football is the least important thing on earth.
Unfortunately Project Ford Focus didn’t work. The cops stopped me constantly. And I didn’t even look like a foreigner – I was wearing a furry hat! I’d even adopted the Russian driving style – overtaking left and right, showing no fear at all.
Most of the time I didn’t know why they’d stopped me. The very first time, somewhere in town, I hadn’t been drinking and I wasn’t driving too fast, so what was going on? That was my question to them too.
As the conversation was leading nowhere – they didn’t speak English, I didn’t speak Russian – I decided to call our team manager Fedor. ‘Call me if you get in to trouble, Fernando. No matter what time of day or night,’ he’d told me.
He picked up the phone immediately.
‘Fedor,’ I said, ‘I think I’ve got a problem.’
Silly Fernando had a problem indeed, as he had been stupid enough to give them his passport and driving licence. And they refused to give the documents back.
Fedor kept his cool. ‘Just let me talk to the guys, okay?’
Without asking any questions, I pushed my cell phone against the ear of one of the representatives of the strong arm of the law. Twenty seconds later I got it back. We then knew the accusation: I had been speeding. According to them.
‘Just pay, Fernando. Even if you are innocent. Pay and they’ll let you go.’
I did object to this, but only internally. I didn’t want any hassle, but it was ridiculous, as I’d been driving at twelve miles an hour.
Next question: how much to pay? I didn’t have the slightest idea. And Fedor had hung up. I didn’t want to insult them with my donation, as they’d come after me again. How about, let’s see, 1,000 roubles? That’s about £17, and quite a lot of money for the average Russian. So I grabbed a 1,000-rouble note and laid it on their dashboard, just as Fedor had advised.
It was enough. I got my valuables back and was allowed to continue my journey.
Now, this used to happen once or twice a week. Each week! And they had one daft story after the other. Crossing a line was one of them; neglecting a red traffic light another; speeding was the most popular one.
Still, I continued driving by myself. I didn’t want a chauffeur from the club, like Dick and Cor had, because that would limit my freedom. With my own car I could go wherever I wanted. If I could find ‘wherever’, that is, as the signs were all in Cyrillic, so I used to miss the odd turn-off. I often ended up in the outskirts, and they weren’t the nicest (or safest!) places to drive around for two hours, I can assure you. Finding a local who spoke English was practically impossible. But, hey, it was another adventure!
After a while, I felt some sympathy for those cops – or at least some understanding. Russia is ostensibly a rich country, but there is a lot of poverty too. Policemen only earn a pittance a month, not enough to survive on in an expensive city like Saint Petersburg. Unemployment benefits don’t exist in Russia, so being on the dole isn’t an alternative. They simply have to lay their hands on that extra bit of highway cash to make it to the end of the month. And that was why you had to be extra careful during the festive season – that time of year when families really need some extra pocket money.
Also, once you’d paid them, it was over and done with. No endless red tape, as in Holland, which can lead to fines and court if you forget to pay them.
Corruption was everywhere. Want your driving licence? Wait for two months. Unless, like one of my female friends did, you give a public servant some cash and suddenly you’re a priority.
So, I soon picked up that this was the way to deal with things. I’ve no idea how much money I spent that way, but it must have been a lot. The advantage was that nobody bothered me any more. And when they found out I was this famous footballer from Zenit – albeit not one as popular as Arshavin – I hardly got busted at all.
And fraud within football itself? I can’t prove anything, but I do have my doubts. Take, for instance, Vladislav Radimov in the match against Rubin Kazan, October 2006. He handed the ball to an opponent, so he could score easily. And this didn’t happen once, not even twice, but three bloody times in a row! Now, I can’t say it stank, but it certainly smelled odd ...
Match fixing? I made that connection a few years later, as the phenomenon became popular. Once again, I can’t prove anything, but it still frustrates me. Thanks to that suspicious 0–3 against Rubin Kazan, our chances to win the title disappeared like snow in the Sahara. We ended up in a disappointing fourth place.
And this wasn’t an isolated incident. Two weeks later, when we had to face main rivals and later champions CSKA Moscow, strange things happened again. Once again, as in the confrontation with Rubin Kazan, we were the better of the two teams. But we lost.
It was a shambles. Handball in the goal, after Arshavin was about to score. Two incorrect offside decisions against Andrey. A penalty after their centre-forward, Vágner Love, fell over the ball, with none of us near him. Daniel Carvalho, their Brazilian midfielder, scored from the dot, and red-faced Dick was jumping around as if he were on fire. He continued to do so, way after the final whistle had faded.
Shortly after, the referee was suspended – a wise decision from the Russian FA. But it was useless for us – we didn’t get a rematch. It gave me the impression that everything was allowed in the ongoing battle between Russia’s biggest cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
It was always a high-voltage encounter when we met CSKA. Okay, it wasn’t as much of a madhouse as the Old Firm, but, still, the confrontations with the club from the capital were rather unpleasant. They found us, the new kids on the block, a nuisance. For years and years they had been untouchable, and all of a sudden there were these rascals from up north trying to steal their crown. They did everything to prevent us from being the country’s best – and I had great difficulties with that.
And there was more I had to get used to; the fact that simple things almost always turned into complex things. Like, for instance, dealing with things such as a bank account. I didn’t have one in the beginning, but – surprise! – I was in need of some cash. So I called Zenit and asked them to transfer some to my old Citibank account.
‘No problem,’ they said. ‘Just come to our office downtown. That’s where our safe is. We make sure there will be some money for you once you arrive.’
The aforementioned money was part of my salary. With it, they told me, I could go to any bank and open an account, just like that.
I was in a very good mood when I drove to the office, the next day, but once I’d entered the place I thought they were taking the piss. You know the kind of plastic bags you get at Tesco, or any supermarket? Well, there were two of them, and they weren’t filled with groceries. The two bags were loaded with money! Total amount: 3.5 million roubles (£80,000)!
‘Here you are,’ the clerk said, as he handed me the bags. As if they were filled with old newspapers.
But ... hang on, what was I supposed to do with this? Go out for a walk, whistling? ‘Hey, what are you staring at? Never seen a guy with two shopping bags full of money?’ In Russia, they’d kill you for a tenth of that sum.
‘What’s the problem?’ the clerk asked. ‘You wanted some cash, didn’t you?’ He noticed the fear in my eyes. ‘Don’t worry, son. Nothing will happen to you.’
And he meant it. So out I went, shaking like a turkey around Christmas, to my car. The heaviest few metres of my life – literally, as the weight of the bags was enormous, because they were filled with 1,000-rouble notes.
During my drive to the Citibank, on the other side of town, I was praying that the cops wouldn’t stop me. Not this time. Please, not this time. ‘No, officer, I haven’t robbed a bank.’
I reached the bank, but, shit, no parking spot! Wait, there was one a few hundred metres away, but no way was I going to take the risk again. I parked the Ford Focus on the pavement, right in front of the entrance. Big deal if they fined me; it would be cheaper than getting mugged. And how long was it going to take, anyway? Hand over the money, open an account ... piece of cake, surely.
So in I walked. ‘Good afternoon, I am a professional player from Zenit and I would like to open an account. Oh, and I would like to put this in it.’
The man behind the desk looked at me as if I was a complete lunatic. ‘Not possible, sir.’
‘Not possible? What do you mean “not possible”?’
‘You are a foreigner, so you should have asked for this in advance. Procedure, sir.’
I got angry. Started to call him names. ‘I’m not leaving the place!’ and ‘Look how much money this is! They’ll murder me on the street!’
The man consulted his superior. Then it was, ‘Okay, just this once ... but we have to count it. Three times. Procedure, sir.’
Now try to picture the scene: a slow bank employee counting a mountain of bank notes – three times. After two hours of waiting I’d had enough. ‘It’s fine, I believe you,’ I tried to tell him. ‘There’s no need to count it for a third time.’
The employee shook his head. He really had to count the notes one, two, three times. ‘Procedure.’ And after that ... a fourth time, with the machine! Just to be sure, you know.
Three hours later I had my bank account. And it was loaded. More good news: my Ford Focus was still on the pavement, and its flashlights were still on. Plus, I didn’t even have a fine! A day well spent, after all.
Anyway, time for a flashback to that first night in Saint Petersburg. Remember the strip joint I’d entered with my drunk buddies Arshavin, Denisov and Anyukov? Guess who was there, lying in a chair, plastered ... Cor Pot.
Yup, the assistant who had been so ‘tired’ that he had to go ‘to bed’. Somewhere along the line he must have changed his mind. Anyway, he was completely wasted, so in the end I had to take him back to the hotel and put him to bed. That’s Cor for you, a man who likes to party.
Unlike Dick. He hardly left his super-duper suite on the top floor of the Kempinsky Hotel. It was a wonderful room with a breathtaking view over the city and its famous museum, the Hermitage, but I wonder if Dick ever noticed the beauty of it. All the Little General did was watch DVD footage of our future opponents, for hours and hours and hours. But, he was as prepared as a human being can be.
Only after finishing all his homework was there time for relaxation. In Dick’s case this meant switching to satellite television and watching ... more football! Sometimes until two in the morning.
Cor, as you may have guessed, was a totally different person. After watching a DVD once, he thought that was enough. Time to go out. Time to have a bite to eat with Fernando – preferably at club Maximus. An amazing place with delights wherever you looked: on your plate and on the poles.
Yeah, it wasn’t a bad choice after all, Mother Russia!