Matvey Safonov faces alimony hearing before Barcelona clash

Matvey Safonov has a court hearing scheduled for 19 October, the day before Paris Saint-Germain host Barcelona in the Champions League.

The Khoroshevsky District Court in Moscow will hear the goalkeeper's alimony case, according to Sport24. The match against Barcelona kicks off the following day, 20 October, in the third round of the league phase.

At issue is a payment of 1.25 million roubles that Safonov transferred to his former wife, Anastasia Kazachek, in 2024 and 2025. He had asked bailiffs to count that sum toward his alimony obligations. The court refused, ruling that the transfer had been made as a gift rather than as an alimony payment.

Safonov has since filed a suit against the Federal Bailiff Service challenging that decision. He has also taken the underlying rule to Russia's Constitutional Court, which has agreed to hear his complaint against the Family Code provision that sets alimony as a share of income rather than a fixed sum. His argument, by all accounts, is that a fixed amount would better reflect a child's actual needs than a percentage tied to earnings. In January, his lawyer Andrei Kryuchkov said Safonov's side had also raised a possible abuse of rights by Kazachek over a repeated attempt to recover legal costs. Safonov cleared an alimony debt of more than 66 million roubles in 2025.

Safonov joined PSG from Krasnodar in the summer of 2024, in a move reported at €20 million. He has won two Champions League titles with the Paris side among nine trophies collected there.