2009 Russian First Division


The Russian First Division 2009 is the 18th season of Russia's second-tier football league since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The season began on 28 March 2009 and ended on 4 November 2009.

Teams

The league has been reduced from 22 to 20 teams. It features eleven clubs from Russian First Division 2008, two clubs relegated from Russian Premier League 2008, five zone winners from Russian Second Division 2008 and two of the third-placed clubs from Russian Second Division 2008.

Movement between Premier League and First Division

as 2008 champions and Kuban Krasnodar as runners-up have been promoted to the Premier League. They will be replaced by relegated teams Shinnik Yaroslavl and Luch-Energia Vladivostok.

Movement between First Division and Second Division

Due to the league contraction, seven instead of the regular five teams were relegated to their respective Second Division group. These teams, ranked 16th through 22nd in 2008, were Metallurg-Kuzbass Novokuznetsk, Volga Ulyanovsk, Torpedo Moscow, Mashuk-KMV Pyatigorsk, Dinamo Barnaul, Dinamo Bryansk and Zvezda Irkutsk.
The relegated teams were replaced by the five 2008 Second Division zone winners. These were MVD Rossii Moscow, Metallurg Lipetsk, Volgar-Gazprom-2 Astrakhan, Volga Nizhny Novgorod and FC Chita.

Further team changes

avoided relegation in 2008 by finishing 15th, but announced refusal to play in the First Division on 18 December 2008. On 15 January 2009, SKA Rostov-on-Don refused to play as well. Regulations provided that Sportakademclub and SKA should be replaced by two of the runners-up from the Second Division groups. However, since all of those teams refused promotion, the places were eventually filled by third-place finishers FC Nizhny Novgorod and FC Krasnodar.

Overview

TeamLocationHead coachCaptainVenueCapacityPosition in 2008
Vladikavkaz Mircea RednicKamalutdin AkhmedovRepublican Spartak32,464
Makhachkala Omari TetradzeRasim TagirbekovDynamo16,800
Kaliningrad Leonid TkachenkoDenis MatyolaBaltika14,660
Novorossiysk Igor Cherniy Tsentralny 12,500
Chita Oleg KokarevIlya MakiyenkoLokomotiv10,200
Naberezhnye Chelny Vitali Panov Spartak GogniyevKAMAZ9,221
Krasnodar Nurbiy KhakunovMaksim DemenkoKuban35,200
Vladivostok Aleksandr PobegalovDinamo10,200
Lipetsk Valeri Tretyakov Metallurg14,940
Moscow Vladimir EshtrekovAvangard, Domodedovo6,000
Nizhny Novgorod Viktor ZaidenbergOleg GubanovSeverny3,180
Novotroitsk Gennady GridinRuslan SurodinMetallurg6,060
Belgorod Sergei TashuevSergei KushovSalyut11,500
Yaroslavl Yuri BykovRoman MonaryovShinnik18,500
Novosibirsk Igor KriushenkoAleksey MedvedevSpartak12,500
Khabarovsk Vladimir FaizulinAndrey KonovalovLenin Stadium15,200
Yekaterinburg Vladimir FedotovAleksey KatulskyUralmash13,000
Podolsk Andrei Novosadov Andrei SmirnovTrud12,000
Nizhny Novgorod Khazret DyshekovVitali AstakhovPolyot4,600
Astrakhan Aleksandr IgnatenkoNail MagzhanovCentralny18,500

FC MVD Rossii resigned from the league on 17 July after playing 19 matches. The team was in the 19th position with 17 points.

Managerial changes

Standings

Results

Top scorers

Last updated: 4 November 2009; Source:
;18 goals
;17 goals
;16 goals
;15 goals
;13 goals
;12 goals
;10 goals
;9 goals
On 25 November 2009, Professional Football League announced the award winners for the season.