February 9 – Barcelona are taking Zenit St. Petersburg to sport’s highest court in pursuit of a €490,000 bonus payment it says it missed out on when the Russian club was banned from the Champions League following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Barca have filed a lawsuit with the Court of Arbitration for Sport claiming that Zenit representatives have not paid the bonuses that were stipulated during the sale of Brazilian winger Malcom who moved from Spain to Russia in August 2019 for €41.5 million.
That deal required Zenit to pay Barcelona €490,000 each time it qualified for the Champions League group stage in a season where Malcom had played in at least half its domestic league games.
But FIFA ruled last year that Zenit didn’t have to pay the money after it was excluded from the 2022-23 Champions League season as part of a UEFA ban on Russian clubs, even though it had won the domestic league title to qualify for the competition.
In that FIFA ruling, judge Thulaganyo Gaoshubelwe said Zenit should not be obliged to “share an economical profit which it never obtained,” and added that the war in Ukraine was a fact “not directly ascribable to (Zenit).”
Zenit subsequently sold the winger to Saudi club Al-Hilal last July for €60 million.
The CAS hearing will take place on March 22.
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