Quote:
Originally Posted by FranksandBean
Sorry to derail the discussion it I’m not sure I agree with the organized crime tag that has been placed on this, its more of just business in Russia they have lots of white collar crime. By that I mean there is a lot of creative accounting to avoid paying tax and lots of the super rich (people who own KHL teams) have deep ties to the FSB/GRU/Government. There is also a draft in Russia by law they are not allowed to hide outside the country to avoid it any more.
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Maybe painting the whole league as under the thumb of organized crime is not fair. I just remember a Rick Westhead story a few years back about the KHL, and it sounded pretty bad. I recall an incident where Oleg Tverdovsky's mother was kidnapped and held for ransom, and it turned out the people who did it were associated with the team. There was another story about a team owner who would brandish a gun at practices if he didn't like what he saw. There was another story about foreign players getting contraband planted on them at airports to get them kicked out of the country when the team didn't want to pay them any more.
That was quite a few years ago, so maybe that stuff doesn't happen anymore.