The arrival of former Zenit president Sergei Fursenko as president of Russia’s football union prompted many to suspect that the title was heading back to St. Petersburg this season.

Before a ball was kicked, it was muttered, the Gazprom-backed club had an unfair advantage with friendly faces in the administration ready to ease their passage to new signings and smooth over any disciplinary indiscretions.

That’s a far cry from the days that local MPs put a bill before Russia’s state Duma protesting that systematic refereeing bias was ensuring the championship always went to a Moscow club.

So far, however, interventions at the House of Football have been kept to a minimum as Luciano Spaletti’s men have built a commanding lead at the top of the table and spent the summer transfer window enhancing their position at their rivals’ expense.

And it is defending champions Rubin Kazan who’ve been rocked by a double raid this year, with star striker Alexander Bukharov and experienced midfielder Sergei Semak heading north to join Zenit.

That’s a huge blow to Rubin’s hopes of completing a hat-trick of league titles, with Zenit already clear at the top and now seemingly picking off their rivals’ key players at will.

And the mood in Tatarstan was somewhat bitter, judging by coverage of Bukharov’s move in local newspaper "Respublika Tatarstan".

Noting home-team coach Kurban Berdyev’s ability to coax unprecedented success from unheralded players, the paper warned Bukharov that moving to Zenit may not steer him towards the summit of his career.

Rubin’s counter-attacking style suited Bukharov’s poaching instincts perfectly, while Spaletti’s team does not play football "on the second floor" – suggesting the lanky frontman will be deprived of the pinpoint crossing that he thrived on in Kazan.

But the arrival of ex-Zenit coach Dick Advocaat as Russia’s new manager – he kicks off the new era with a friendly against Bulgaria – seems to have helped persuade Bukharov to move in search of a chance of international football.

Despite his key role for Rubin he was a long way down Guus Hiddink’s pecking order, becoming a kind of Russian Darren Bent as he struggled to dislodge big name rivals regardless of their form.

Amazingly, for a side with back-to-back titles on the honours board, Rubin did not provide a single member of Advocaat’s first 20-man squad. Bukharov and Semak were both absent as well, perhaps to allow them to settle into their new surroundings.

Zenit’s higher profile, and, lest we forget, bigger budget, should help Bukharov’s push to get into Advocaat’s thoughts.

But Semak’s defection is a bigger shock: the midfielder was a regular in Hiddink’s squads, and even captained the side on occasion.

And with Zenit overstaffed with quality midfielders – Vova Bystrov, Konstantin Zyryanov, Igor Denisov and Roman Shirokov could plausibly form the Russia midfield quartet – it smacks of an attempt to scupper a rival, Old Firm style, by raiding their key players.

If Gazprom’s cash means similar signings are in the pipeline, it’s unlikely that Zenit will need Fursenko’s favours to secure their first title since 2007.