MOSCOW, November 14 (RAPSI) – Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky District Court has dismissed a lawsuit of four ex-national football team players demanding over 109 million rubles ($1.7 million) from the Interior Ministry, lawyer Alexander Burchuk has told RAPSI.

The court rejected claims of Dmitry Khokhlov, Yury Nikiforov, Andrey Karyaka, Dmitry Kirichenko.

On October 23, the court postponed a similar 45-million-ruble (nearly $700,000) suit lodged by halfback Yevgeny Aldonin against Russia’s Interior Ministry.

In total, former players of Russia’s national football team Khokhlov, Nikiforov, Karyaka, Kirichenko, Aldonin and Dmitry Sychov are seeking to collect 260 million rubles (about $4 million) from the Ministry for allegedly unsatisfactory probe into fraud at Zamoskvoretsky bank

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.