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Zenit official slams decision to make team play in empty stadium

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MOSCOW, March 18 (RIA Novosti) - A top Zenit St. Petersburg official has hit out at the decision to punish the club for its fans' behavior by making the side play its March 22 Premier League match against Saturn FC behind closed doors.

Sunday's match is Zenit's first home game of the new Premier League season, which runs from March through the summer to November.

"The first match is always an emotional high. For me the most important thing is that we have been unfairly punished," Zenit's commercial director Sergei Belkov told Sport Express.

The punishment was handed down by the Russian Premier League's governing body after Zenit's last home game of last season, against Dynamo Moscow in November, when the club's fans unfurled a banner insulting the memory of Lev Yashin, one of the country's greatest ever players.

The banner read "Your Yashin snuffed it, and Dynamo will snuff it."

Lev Yashin (1929-1990) is the only goalkeeper ever to have won the European Player of the Year Award. He spent his whole career, from 1949 to 1971, at Dynamo Moscow.

The keeper, who wore all black when defending his goal, won world fame with his breathtaking performances as the Soviet Union reached the semifinals of the 1966 World Cup in England. He was voted the best goalkeeper ever by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics.

"We don't want any conflict with the city, the police or the Russian Football Premier League, and so we are urging fans not to come to the stadium during the match against Saturn," Belkov said.

"However, the problem is that ... due to the excesses of a small section of the crowd, the entire city has been deprived of the game. Saturn fans will also suffer, as they have been deprived of the opportunity to come and support their side," he added.

Russian soccer fans have a long tradition of bringing banners to matches. Before last year's Russia-England game in Moscow, "the largest banner in the world," depicting a bear, was unfurled before kick-off.

Banners are frequently of a less savory nature, however. In 2006, a swastika was displayed by Spartak Moscow fans at an away game in Yaroslavl, 250 km (155 miles) northeast of the capital.

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