Nikola Nikezic Says He Was Beaten into Terminating His Soccer Contract

Are you upset about the current labor situation in the National Football League?  So are we.  Anyone who is a fan of football is dreading the possibility of a delay or cancellation of the 2011 NFL season.  Some of you are probably siding with the players while others are siding with the owners.  Regardless of your position, I think we can all be grateful neither party is handling the negotiations that way Russian soccer team Kuban Krasnodar handled theirs with Nikola Nikezic.

LBS reader Manny called our attention to an Associated Press report from Tuesday, in which Nikezic alleges armed men beat him for 20 minutes at Kuban’s headquarters on March 7 in southern Russia.  The reason: Nikezic was no longer welcome on the team but refused to sign his termination papers.

“When I replied that my contract has another year to run … I received a powerful blow to the Liver,” Nikezic wrote in his letter to FIFA president Sepp Blatter.

Nikezic also said that after he signed the papers his attackers warned him that “a lot of Russians live in Montenegro, and they can always find you or a member of your family, so don’t do anything stupid.”  Nikezic alleges it was Nikolai Khlistunov, one of the club’s trainers, who asked him to sign the papers and told him he would “return to Montenegro disabled” if he failed to do so.

Executives from Kuban have dismissed the claims as “wild” and “pure idiocy.”  If Nikezic is not telling the truth, he put together quite an elaborate story to pitch to FIFA.