MOSCOW, September 23 (RAPSI) – Former players of Russia’s national football team have asked Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court to join their civil claims seeking to recover in total 260 million rubles (about $4 million) from the Interior Ministry for allegedly unsatisfactory probe into fraud at Zamoskvoretsky bank, a RAPSI correspondent reports from the courtroom on Monday.

Legal representatives of five ex-footballers, Dmitry Khokhlov, Yury Nikiforov, Andrey Karyaka, Dmitry Kirichenko, Dmitry Sychov, and Yevgeny Aldonin, believe the petition is substantiated by the principle of procedural efficiency; nevertheless, the court has denied a motion on the part of Aldonin’s lawyer citing that preliminary hearings with respect to claims of other footballers had not been held yet.

The next hearing on Aldonin’s claim is to be held on October 9.

The court has also named Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office, Prosecutor’s Office of the Central Administrative District and Finance Ministry as third parties in the process.

Ex-footballers believe that police shall compensate them the damages suffered due to foot-dragging in the probe into embezzlement at Zamoskvoretsky bank, where they had their deposits.

After the license revocation along with Aldonin five other footballers lost their funds. They deposited over 350 million rubles ($5.3 million) in the bank hoping for 30-40 per cent per annum but got deprived of the money.

In November 2018, the Moscow City Court granted the footballers’ lawsuit against the Finance Ministry and awarded 30,000 rubles (over $450) in compensation each for violation of their right to trial within a reasonable time.

Zamoskvoretsky bank lost its license in 2014.

The bank’s former board chair and co-owner Ilya Budarin, who was accused of a 2.5-billion-ruble embezzlement (about $40 million), fled from investigation and was put on the wanted list. Later, he was arrested and detained.