"I am a specific enough person, and I would prefer not to comment," 54-year-old Gazzayev told the Sport radio station. "Everything that is being said and written is conjecture, fantasy, and simply ridiculous."
His comments came after the Sovetski Sport paper reported on Thursday that the trainer had given his preliminary agreement to manage CSKA's traditional enemies. If this were true, the unexpected development would be sure to see Gazzayev become extremely unpopular with CSKA fans, and it is also not clear how Spartak supporters would react.
Gazzayev first took over at CSKA in 2001, but despite winning the domestic league in 2003 he was sacked for failing to take the team into the lucrative Champions League group stages. However, a year later, he was invited back and, obviously not a man to hold a grudges, immediately won the Russian Premier League, the Russian Cup and the UEFA Cup for the former Red Army side.
The spectacularly-mustachioed coach stepped down as coach of CSKA in November after the end of the 2008 season, citing "tiredness."
Laudrup's dismissal from Spartak followed a poor start to the season that has seen Russia's most successful side of the 1990s win just one of their opening five games. He is the sixth coach in as many years to be dismissed Spartak. The team is being managed "for the near future" by general director Valery Karpin, a former Spartak, Valencia and Celta Vigo player.
"The club is up to its head in a swamp, and only Valery Gazzayev or Yury Syomin [ex-Lokomotiv Moscow coach, currently at Dynamo Kiev] can drag them out of it," former Spartak forward Valery Reingold told Sport Express.
Former Lokomotiv coach Anatoliy Byshovyets, 62, has also been linked with the Spartak post, although the one-time Dynamo Kiev player has denied that he has been approached by the club.
