RUSSIAN SOCCER CLEAN-UP

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30882, 15 October 1965, Page 23

RUSSIAN SOCCER CLEAN-UP

(N.Z.PA.-Reuter—Copyright)

MOSCOW, October 13. In a campaign to clean up Soviet soccer Russian newspapers have accused two first division teams of organising “drunken debauches.”

The campaign comes after a life ban on eight top players for “systematic drunkenness.” The ban was ordered by officials of the Soviet Soccer Federation.

Several big clubs have come under fire In the newspaper campaign. Players, including some internationals, have been criticised for dirty play.

One team captain has been accused of “speculating with foreign clothes,” while one leading dub, Tbilisi Dynamo, has been attacked for ’flatting success go to its heads.” None of the eight banned stars is an international but all come from first and second division clubs. The newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” linked the stiff sentences with the current campaign in Russia against drunkenness. Footballers had to set a good example or be driven out of the game, it said.

The newspaper also complained that Tbilisi Dynamo had deteriorated badly this season because its players

had started to believe that they were “some sort of supermasters who can do anything and to Whom anything is allowed.” The former champion club, now in the middle of the first division, was top of the league for dirty play, the newspaper alleged.