Russian teams ordered to replay bandy match after 20 own goals

Team Udayavani, Mar 16, 2017, 10:58 AM IST

Two bandy teams have been ordered to replay a match in which they scored 20 own goals between them amid allegations of match-fixing.

Bandy, a free-flowing sport considered a form of hockey, is a combination of field hockey, ice hockey and football and is little-known outside Scandinavia and Russia.

Baikal-Energiya beat Vodnik 11-9 in their Russian Super League game, but all of the goals went in at what’s normally called the ‘wrong’ end.

With 22 minutes of the 90 remaining, Sunday’s game in Arkhangelsk, northwest Russia, was locked at 0-0 when Vodnik’s Oleg Pivovarov suddenly scored three own goals, putting the visitors 3-0 up.

Not to be outdone, Baikal-Energiya responded with nine rapid own goals of their own, making it 9-3 to Vodnik, before Pivovarov rescued the points for the opposition by notching another eight goals, all into his own team’s net.

Now, the All Russian Bandy Federation has alleged the teams were fixing the match, nullified the result and ordered a replay at a neutral venue on Friday.

Punishments will be decided on Tuesday, when the governing body meets the teams, who have both apologised to their fans.

League officials blamed Vodnik who, had they won, would have faced the league’s reigning champions Yenisey Krasnoyarsk in the upcoming play-offs, while Baikal-Energiya were already guaranteed to play a much weaker team.

Federation president Boris Skrynnik accused Vodnik of starting the farce in order to “play against a convenient team”.

He claimed Baikal-Energiya joined in after its players “decided to have some fun”.

The game is played on ice by teams of 11 players each, who use sticks similar to hockey sticks to propel a small rubber ball into a goal on a large outdoor rink roughly the size of a soccer pitch.

This is not the first time a sporting event has been scandalised by players allegedly trying to fix results on the pitch.

Eight female badminton players from South Korea, China and Indonesia were disqualified from the 2012 Olympics after they deliberately made basic errors in group stage games in an attempt to fix the draw for the next round.

But they’ve all got nothing on Madagascan football side Stade Olympique de l’Emyrne, who scored a record 149 own-goals in a match in 2002 as a protest against what they felt was unfair refereeing.