Loko, Zenit Cool on RPL Playoff Plan

Two leading Russian Premier League clubs, Zenit St. Petersburg and Lokomotiv Moscow, have reacted coolly to the idea of next year's championship being decided by a playoff tournament. Sergey Fursenko, the head of the Russian Football Union, told RIA Novosti on Tuesday that he was advocating the idea of determining the champions through the kind of end-of-season playoffs that hockey and basketball fans are accustomed to. But Zenit general director Maxim Mitrofanov told RIA Novosti he didn't "see the point of creating a playoff system." "This is the first I'm hearing of the playoff idea in Russian football. ... Does Russia want to take some kind of brave new path again? It's not right. I don't understand where the RFU got this idea from," he said. Lokomotiv president Olga Smorodskaya did not reject the proposal but said she wasn't prepared to evaluate it before it had been discussed with the league's clubs. "We've only just learned that Sergei Alexandrovich (Fursenko) has such an idea. The clubs aren't extras in all this. They are the ones who give something for people to come to see. "There should be a good, weighed discussion on the issue with the participation of the RFU president and every single Premier League club," she told RIA Novosti. The current championship is being played out over the course of a season-and-a-half to accommodate a switch from a summer to a winter league. That's a one-off, and from next season Russia will follow regular European seasons that begin in late summer and end in the spring. Zenit leads by seven points with eight games remaining. Lokomotiv are third, one point behind CSKA in second. Fursenko told RIA Novosti about his playoff plan earlier Tuesday. "We won't disclose all the details, because playoffs in the Russian championship are still under discussion and a final decision hasn't yet been made. ... Slowly we are moving in the right direction. It's possible that there will be playoffs at the end of the season. We will try."