The Rise and Fall of Anzhi Makhachkala: A Riches to Rags Story
The Story of Anzhi Makhachkala’s Fall From Grace
Once considered the richest club in the world, Anzhi Makhachkala is now on the brink of extinction.
But what really happened to this legendary football club? Crippy Cooke tells the full story.
Willian playing for Russian club Anzhi Makhachkala
The football world has been turned upside down since Saudi Arabia privatised state-owned clubs, resulting in big-name players making the switch from Europe to the Middle East for large transfer fees and salaries.
However, this isn’t the first time a non-Western nation has made a concerted effort to attract the biggest names in football.
China did it with the Chinese Super League, spending large sums of money to sign players and offering huge contracts to keep these stars in the Far East.
But their plan fell apart after a financial bust, so many of the players would end up leaving.
Billionaire businessman Suleyman Kerimov tried to do a similar thing in Russia after taking over Anzhi Makhachkala in 2011, but the club are now on the brink of extinction.
Anzhi were once the world's richest club, signing big-name players on the most lucrative contracts, but the wheels fell off after two years and they would drop down the leagues before losing their professional status.
Anzhi Makhachkala endured quite the fall in recent years, so where did it all go wrong?
Anzhi Before the Money
Anzhi were founded in 1991 by Aleksandr Markarov - a former Dynamo Makhachkala striker - and businessman Magomed-Sultan Magomedov.
The name Anzhi means ‘pearl’ in a language spoken by the people of Dagestan, and ‘Makhachkala’ is the city they’re situated in – the capital of Dagestan.
The Eagles initially played their games at Dynamo Stadium until 2003. They won a Dagestan League title in their first season and joined the Russia Professional League.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union saw Anzhi enter Zone 1 of the Russian Second Division (third tier) the following season.
Anzhi won the league in 1993 but weren’t promoted due to reorganisation, so they stayed in the new Western Zone until earning promotion to the First Division in 1996.
The Eagles were promoted to the Russian Premier League in 1999 but spent only three seasons in the top flight before being relegated.
They moved out of Dynamo Stadium into Anzhi Arena in 2003 - a 26,500-capacity ground. The plan was to house a bigger audience as the club grew, but Anzhi Arena wasn’t eligible for European football.
They would have to use the Lokomotiv Stadium in Moscow for future Europa League games.
Anzhi spent seven seasons in the second tier before returning to the Premier League in 2009. They consolidated with an 11th-place finish before the 2011 takeover changed their fate.
The Eagles were barely a top-flight side and only had two trophies in the cabinet, however, so they didn’t have a legacy in Russian football.
Suleyman Kerimov’s 2011 Takeover
On January 2011, Dagestani billionaire Suleyman Kerimov bought Anzhi. It was later revealed the President of Dagestan offered local boy Kerimov a 100% stake in the club in exchange for financial support.
The plan was to invest over £156m in infrastructure while building a new stadium with a capacity of more than 40,000 to meet UEFA requirements.
Kerimov was regarded as a Kremlin-friendly oligarchy, and it’s expected by Russian leadership that the wealthiest men develop the country’s most impoverished areas.
Dagestan is a poor republic with high unemployment and corruption.
Anzhi Makhachkala manager Suleyman Kerimov
The Guardian were welcomed to Dagestan by Kerimov in 2011 and reported that Anzhi players resided in Moscow and trained outside the Dagestan capital to escape potential violence from rebels and riot police.
Players would fly to Makhachkala the day before a match and take a bus to the airport immediately afterwards, boarding a private jet that took them to Moscow.
The hope was that Dagestan’s main football club could change the fortunes of the entire republic, putting people higher up the socio-economic ladder.
Kerimov built football centres for children and renovated Anzhi Arena, so thousands of jobs were generated.
Failure to Win a Title
The most significant investment from Kerimov was on players.
Anzhi would only sanction free transfers and loan deals in the past, spending £1.2m between 2000 and 2010, but they put down more than £100m on new players following Kerimov’s takeover.
These new players included:
Samuel Eto'o (£23m from Inter Milan)
Yuriy Zhirkov (£12.8m from Chelsea)
Christopher Samba (£12m from Blackburn Rovers)
Balázs Dzsudzsák (£16.2m from PSV Eindhoven)
Jucilei (£8.5m from Corinthians)
Moubarak Boussoufa (£6.8m from RSC Anderlecht)
Vladimir Gabulov (£6m from Dinamo Moscow)
Diego Tardelli (£6m from Atletico-MG)
Shamil Lakhiyalov (£4.3m from Krasnodar)
Mehdi Carcela-González (£4.9m from Standard Liege)
João Carlos (£2.1m from KRC Genk)
Georgiy Gabulov (£2.9m from Alania)
Oleg Shatov (£2.6m from Ural)
Odil Akhmedov (£1.5m from Pakhtakor)
Arafat Djako (£0.3m from Hapoel Acre)
Arseniy Logashov (£0.3m from Khimki)
Roberto Carlos (free transfer from Corinthians)
The goal was to win the Premier League, but the Eagles found themselves eighth at the mid-season break.
They hired Guus Hiddink as manager and finished the 2011/12 campaign in fifth place, booking their place in the Europa League.
Kerimov kept up the spending with £58m put down on Willian, Lacina Toure, Ewerton, Lassana Diarra and Andrey Eshchenko in 2012/23, but Anzhi could only muster a third-place finish.
They were knocked out in the last-16 of the Europa League and lost in the Russian Cup final.
Hiddink would resign in July, just one month after signing a new deal, while René Meulensteen took over and had left his post within three weeks, so there were signs things were falling apart.
Financial Disarray at Anzhi Makhachkala
Anzhi switched course in the summer of 2013, significantly cutting the annual budget and sanctioning the sale of most valuable assets.
This included:
Willian (to Chelsea for £32m)
Aleksandr Kokorin (to Dinamo Moscow for £16.2m)
Moubarak Boussoufa (to Lokomotiv Moscow for £12.8m)
Igor Denisov (to Dinamo Moscow £12.8m)
Lassana Diarra (to Lokomotiv Moscow for £10.2m)
Yuriy Zhirkov (to Dinamo Moscow for £9.4m)
Lacina Traore (to AS Monaco for £8.5m)
Christopher Samba (to Dinamo Moscow for £8.5m)
Vladimir Gabulov (to Dinamo Moscow for £6m)
Oleg Shatov (to Zenit St. Petersburg for £6m)
Jucilei (to Al-Jazira for £5.1m)
Aleksey Ionov (to Dinamo Moscow for £4.3m)
Arseniy Logashov (to Lokomotiv Moscow for £2.6m)
Mehdi Carcela-González (to Standard Liège for £0.9m)
João Carlos (to Spartak Moscow for £0.6m)
Kamil Agalarov (to Rostov for £0.5m)
They turned to a familiar face in Gadzhi Gadzhiev for his fifth stint as manager, but the club greatly underperformed in 2013/14 due to the player exodus.
Anzhi were relegated after finishing bottom of the table on 20 points, with only three wins from 30 games.
The Eagles did bounce back immediately, winning promotion from the National Football League in 2014/15, but they flirted with the drop for years as they no longer had the resources to strengthen the squad.
They ploughed through managers too, including:
Gadzhi Gadzhiev (2010/11)
Andrey Gordeev (2011)
Yuri Krasnozhan (2011/12)
Guus Hiddink (2012/13)
René Meulensteen (2013)
Gadzhi Gadzhiev (2013/14)
Sergey Tashuev (2014/15)
Ruslan Agalarov (2015)
Yuriy Semin (2015)
Ruslan Agalarov (2015/16)
Pavel Vrba (2016)
Aleksandr Grigoryan (2017)
Vadim Skripchenko (2017/18)
Magomed Adiev (2018/19)
Valeri Barmin (2019)
Artur Sadirov (2019 – 2022)
Loss of Professional Status
Anzhi struggled back in the top flight, finishing 14th out of 16 teams, and only survived relegation after winning their playoff game.
They finished 12th in 2016/17 as Kerimov sold the club to Osman Kadiyev, but they fell short the following campaign.
Anzhi were relegated in 2017/18 before FC Amkar Perm were sent down instead after having their season license recalled.
Anzhi had no such luck in 2018/19, however, and suffered relegation after finishing 15th in back-to-back campaigns.
The Eagles failed to get their Russian Football Union licensing for the 2019/20 campaign and couldn’t play in the second tier.
They applied to be in tier three (Russian PFL South) rather than declare bankruptcy but weren’t able to register new players due to their debt.
Most of the first-team squad moved to other professional clubs, resulting in Anzhi finishing 15th in the table.
And two years later, the Russian Football Union confirmed they wouldn’t grant the Eagles a license to play in Group 1 (South), so they lost their professional status.
Anzhi were the world’s richest club in 2011, but they dissolved ten years later. Kerimov had resources but not a good business plan to make Anzhi a successful and sustainable team.
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