MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/. The executive management of Russian football club Zenit St. Petersburg never held talks on trading away its forward Artyom Dzyuba to Italy’s Milan FC, Alexander Medvedev, the director general of the Russian club, told TASS on Wednesday.
Dzyuba’s contract with Zenit St. Petersburg FC expires in 2020. Calciomercato sports web portal reported earlier in the day that Italy’s Milan FC expressed interest in the acquisition of the 31-year-old Russian forward to allegedly replace Italian club’s 38-year-old Swedish football star Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
"These are all nothing but boldly ungrounded gossips," Medvedev said. "We are not trading away Dzyuba."
Dzyuba, who is also the captain of the Russian national football team, has been playing for Zenit St. Petersburg FC since 2015 and has a record of 15 goals and 12 assists.
Last month, Medvedev told TASS that players of Russian football club Zenit St. Petersburg have agreed for their wages to be cut by half since the Russian Premier League’s (RPL) season is currently suspended over the novel coronavirus outbreak.
The RPL press service announced after the on-line conference on April 27 that an agreement was reached to restart the championship either on June 21 or on June 28. The RPL season was initially postponed from March 17 and until April 10. The RFU Executive Committee extended on April 1 the postponement of all football matches in Russia, including RPL matches, until May 31.
Prior to the RPL shutdown the league’s clubs completed 22 out of 30 scheduled rounds of the championship. On April 1, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) recommended European football federations to complete halted tournaments.
After 22 rounds of the 2019/2020 season of the Russian Championship Zenit St. Petersburg is in the top of the tournament’s standings with 50 points.
COVID-19
In late December 2019, Chinese officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about the outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, in central China. Since then, cases of the novel coronavirus - named COVID-19 by the WHO - have been reported in every corner of the globe, including Russia.
On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. According to the latest statistics, over 4,390,000 people have been infected worldwide and more than 295,400 deaths have been reported. In addition, so far, over 1,636,800 individuals have recovered from the illness across the globe.
To date, a total of 242,271 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Russia, with 48,003 patients having recovered from the virus. Russia’s latest data indicates 2,212 fatalities nationwide. Earlier, the Russian government set up an Internet hotline to keep the public updated on the coronavirus situation.