Charges against Russian national footballers Kokorin, Mamaev

Moscow police have launched a criminal investigation in regard to two national football players, Alexander Kokorin and Pavel Mamaev, on charges of hooliganism in the wake of their assaults on people in the Russian capital earlier in the week, Yury Titov, a spokesman for the Moscow Interior Ministry’s department, said on Wednesday.

"An investigator decided to launch a separate case concerning an assault on a citizen in a cafe on the Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street [in Moscow] on charges of hooliganism in regard to Kokorin and Mamaev," Titov said.

According to earlier media reports, FC Zenit striker Alexander Kokorin and FC Krasnodar midfielder Pavel Mamaev beat up one of the customers at a downtown Moscow cafe on Monday morning after the customer, sitting at a table nearby, requested that they conduct themselves in a calmer manner in a public place.

Both footballers assaulted the man hitting him on the head with a chair and then punching him in the face, inflicting numerous injuries. The victim, Denis Pak, turned out to be working as a department chief at the Russian Industry and Trade Ministry. Besides other injuries, he suffered a concussion, which he later reported to the police.

According to media reports, before the incident in the cafe both footballers had reportedly assaulted a driver of a Mercedes near the Peking Hotel in Moscow, beating the man up, in addition to breaking one of the vehicle’s windows and damaging one of the car’s doors.