Ex-Manchester United winger Andrei Kanchelskis has blasted the Russian FA as a "petty gang."
Kanchelskis, now a coach at Russian Premier League side FC Volga, hit out at the Russian Football Union ahead of elections for a new president who could shake up the organization.
“I’d like it if a decent, adequate president came in to the football federation to sort of chase out the petty gang who are there,” he said on Russia’s Channel One on Tuesday.
His comments attracted criticism from acting Russian Football Union head Nikita Simonyan who said he had asked the organization’s ethics committee to investigate whether the comments broke FA rules.
“Who does he mean? Me, the employees of the RFU body, or maybe the new coaching staff of the national team?” Simonyan told R-Sport on Tuesday.
“I’ve already appealed to the RFU ethics committee with the aim of assessing Kanchelskis’ words in compliance with RFU rules,” he said.
“Everyone has the right to express their opinion, but it must be done in the correct way.”
Elsewhere Tuesday, one of the seven candidates for the presidency suggested the elections were being rigged by unnamed powerful figures, and that politicians in charge of many regional federations were being instructed how to vote.
“These people are told the president will be this one here, and they’ll vote for him,” Vladimir Tumaev told R-Sport.
“That’s why when you arrive, everyone shies away, they fear meeting you because they’re waiting for orders from above.”
Tumaev has long been at the head of football projects in the city of Izhevsk, where he ran now-defunct team Soyuz-Gazprom and is the deputy director of replacement side Zenit Izhevsk.
Tumaev is perhaps best known for his habit of fielding himself as a player during his time at Soyuz-Gazprom, where he played Russian league games up to the age of 58.
Kanchelskis told R-Sport that he wanted to see more ex-footballers in top positions.
“He probably doesn’t know that amateurs are working all around him,” Kanchelskis said of Simonyan.
