billsportsmaps.com

To see the club profiles enlarged,  and listed in order of the final 2008 table,  click on the following title… russian-premier-league2008club-profiles_final-table-with-promoted-clubs.gif

The 2009 Russian Premier League season starts on the weekend of 14th -15th March.  Here are the fixtures for the first weekend {click here (ESPN Soccernet) }.

Attendance was down 1.5% in the Russian Premier League last season,  but that is a misleading statistic,  because high-drawing yo-yo club Kuban Krasnodar was in the second tier in 2008.  Kuban,  who drew second highest in the Russian Prem in 2007 (21,147 per game),  are from southern Russia.  They bounced straight back to the top flight for this season,  as did another club from the same region,  Rostov.  

The Russian  champions are the surprise club Rubin Kazan,  from the Republic of Tatarstan,  in west-central Russia,  on the Volga River 450 miles (724 km.) east of Moscow.  The Muslim republic’s government has had a sizable input in investment in the club’s squad and infrastructure,  and it has paid of.  In only their 6th season in the Russian top level,  Rubin Kazan took an early lead in the league last spring,  and never were threatened.  It was the second straight season a club from outside the Moscow area won the title,  following Zenit St. Petersburg’s title in 2007,  after 11 straight years of Moscow-based cubs’ title domination.

In 2008, there were several clubs that had improvements in both league form and gate figures.  Dinamo Moscow finished 3rd,  their highest placing in over a decade;  the club also saw their average attendance increase by 34 percent,  to 13,067.  As one might expect,  champions Rubin Kazan saw much bigger crowds…their gate figures increased by 57 percent,  to 18,434.   Krylia Sovetov Samara,  a club with no titles but a big fan base,  led the league with a 21,700 average gate (up 17 percent);  this club from the southern Volga River region,  also improved their league form from 13th place (2007) to 6th place (2008).   Tiny club FC Khimki,  from the northern suburbs of Moscow (think classic Soviet crumbling monolithic apartment buildings),  didn’t improve their league standing,  as they finished one place above the relegation zone (14th place),  but thir small crowds got a bit bigger,  increasing 12 perecent,  to 8,181.  Terek Grozny,  from the war-torn Republic of Chechnya,  filled their brand new 10,000 seat stadium on many occasions,  and ended up with a 8,731 average gate  (a 346 percent increase,  as they were previously forced to play home gamesaway from the bombed-out Grozny,  in Pyatigorsk,  140 miles away).  Terek fared well in ‘08,  finishing in 10th place.   Three other clubs had slight improvements in crowd size:  Lokomotiv Moscow,  CSKA Moscow,  and the club from the foot of the Ural Mountains,  Amkar Perm.  Perm also improved on the pitch,  racking up their best ever Russian league placing,  at fourth,  good enough (along with Zenit St. Petersburg) for a 2009-2010 Europa League spot.

Rubin Kazan and CSKA Moscow qualified for the 2009-2010 Champions League Group Stage;  and Dinamo Moscow won a spot in the 3rd Qualifying Round of the Champions League.  Russia’s UEFA league coefficient ranking shot up from  9th to 6th place,  so for the first time there is a chance of 3 Russian clubs being in the lucrative Champions League Group Stage. 

Thanks to the Footiemap site {click here}.   Thanks to the Colours Of Football site, for the kits {click here}.   Thanks to the RSSSF site {click here (set at Domestic League History- Countrywise) };  I  used the following list for seasons each Russian club spent in the old USSR’s Soviet Top League {click here}.   Thanks to the contributors to the pages at Wikipedia {click here (set at the 2009 Russian Premier League page)}.