Sperzian Removed from 'Gentleman of the Year' Award Nominees List

The midfielder of the Armenian national team and captain of FC Krasnodar, Eduard Sperzian, has been removed from the nominees list for the 'Gentleman of the Year' award, which has been presented in the Russian Premier League (RPL) since 1994. This was reported by Komsomolskaya Pravda.

It was noted that the organizers of the award removed Sperzian from the list due to a scandal arising from accusations of racist remarks. 'Given the situation, and following the decision by the Disciplinary Monitoring Committee to penalize the player and the significant public response, we find it inappropriate to keep the FC Krasnodar player in the list of candidates for the gentleman's black tuxedo,' the organizers' press service quoted by Komsomolskaya Pravda stated.

It is worth mentioning that a clash occurred between Ndongo and Sperzian towards the end of the second half of the 11th round match of the Russian Premier League. After reviewing the incident, the referee sent the Senegalese player off the field for aggressive behavior, while Sperzian received a yellow card for provocative actions. After the game, Ndongo informed Match TV that the FC Krasnodar player had provoked him with racist comments.

The Disciplinary Monitoring Committee investigated the incident and decided to suspend Ndongo for two RPL matches, one conditionally, while Sperzian was fined 150,000 rubles for insulting the Akhmat defender.