Russian ref banned for breaching ethics code

The Russian Professional Football League (PFL) has banned referee Oleg Kuzmenko indefinitely for breaching the league's ethics code.

The PFL said on its website that Kuzmenko was trying to influence an assessor to give him a higher mark.

Kuzmenko becomes the first soccer referee in Russia to be dismissed for unethical behaviour.

Reports of widespread corruption, involving referees, club officials and players, have been circulating in Russian soccer for years but no one had ever been proven guilty.

Dmitry Chepel, general director of first division club Baltika Kaliningrad, was under investigation for an alleged match-fixing scheme last year but the charges against him were later dropped.

Second division side Iriston Vladikavkaz were thrown out of the league in 1997, but then reinstated in a lower division.

¤ Swiss clubs Neuchatel Xamax and St Gallen have been granted playing licences for next season after managing to convince the Swiss league of their financial soundness. The two clubs were provisionally denied licences by the league last month, along with six teams from the country's second division. Swiss football has been plagued by a number of financial scandals, with Lausanne, Lugano and Servette all going out of business in the past three years.