Translated material
Earth collectors
In society
Earth collectors
28 February 2013 Anton Oresh
I already wrote about the phantasmagoric idea of creating the United League-the joint Russian-Ukrainian football championship, which was started by the Bosses of Gazprom, who owns the St. Petersburg Zenit, and the hosts of Anji, CSKA and other strongest teams of Russia. When this idea was only voiced, a pure policy was seen in it, but the football policy. People who are accustomed to do in our football everything that they please, suddenly faced with resistance, sensationally lost the elections of the new head of the RFU (and the elections were honest!). In addition, the new president of the Football Union took a tough position and achieved the observance of the regulations in the noisy story with the firecracker, which was abandoned by the Zenit fans at the goalkeeper of the Moscow Dynamo - and the St. Petersburg club was punished, to the obvious displeasure of Mr. Miller. In general, it seemed that the CIS League, and then the Russian-Ukrainian championship, was an attempt to “reboot” the football power system and crush it for itself, simultaneously expanding the popular theme of nostalgia for the glorious Soviet past, which our supreme authorities loves so much.
But now, it seems to me, the true meaning of the creation of the league has become clear. Not so long ago, in the office of Gazprom, what was called "the meeting of the Chairman of the Board of Gazprom OJSC A.B. Miller with the leadership and owners of football clubs. ” And it became clear who orders the music. And after the end of the event, it became known who pays for music. And most importantly - how much! The organizers of the future tournament promise to invest in it annually exactly a billion euros. It is the euro, they emphasize, and not some miserable dollars or, do not bring the Lord, rubles.
Nine clubs from Russia and Ukraine will fall under the Golden Waterfall. After all, even just for participating in the tournament and the last place successfully occupied in it, the team will have to get almost 26 million cu. And the future united champion will put more than 92 million on the account. For those who do not follow the football economy, I will say that no football championship on the planet does not bring such wealth to its participants. Even the superpopular in the world of the English Premier League with space television, hundreds of millions of fans around the world and hundreds of millions of pounds that television pays her. Neither Spain with her Barcelona and Real Madrid, with her Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. Neither Italy or Germany.
Even the most prestigious and profitable club tournament - the Champions League - pays dividends for the amount of “only” 754 million euros in the season. Despite the fact that in the Champions League only in the main phase of 32 participants, and not 18, as expected in the United League. The winner of the Champions League has 60 million. In our country, in Ukrainian Russia, even a bronze medalist will earn more. In honor of what the championship with the participation of teams of far from the most powerful football powers will turn into an Ali Baba treasury?
In Russia, the average attendance of each match-12-13 thousand people-does not change stably for years. In Ukraine, even less, although after the European Championship and the construction of modern stadiums, people began to go to football more willingly. Teleeretings in our country are ridiculous. A satellite canal, a subscription to which is measured one and a half hundred rubles, collected only a few tens of thousands of subscribers throughout the country. Our television pays about 30 million euros per year. Ukrainian channels are even smaller. If you add all the direct and indirect income of the clubs of the two countries (and often it is not income, but simply transferring money from the right pocket to the left), then they get more than 100 million per season. Is the power of nostalgia such that the championship instantly rise ten times? What, NTV+ will immediately have two million subscribers who are ready to pay one and a half thousand a month? There will be not 12 thousand at the stadiums, but 120? T -shirts and other attributes will be sold at 50 euros apiece, and there will be ten million pieces? Where will the money come from?
League organizers once talk about financial The Fair Play, which is going to introduce UEFA for all European clubs and, according to which these clubs should now live in the means, their expenses should not catastrophically exceed income. So, it turns out to you, the league worth a billion, which will be more than covered with everything.
But, speaking of income, UEFA does not mean direct injections of corporations and state structures. Advertising, television, sales of tickets, players - this is please. What do we have? We have a billion. For a tournament, which is neither in sports nor economically, there is not a tenth of this amount. This billion (every year for a billion!) Will not pay off in any way. Who will give it?
Gazprom will give it. Perhaps those who joined the project, for example, Kerimov, will give something. But these amounts will be an order of magnitude more modest. I note that now a lot of money is investing in our football. But in comparison with a billion euro, this is a penny. And no one but the main corporation of the country is within the power to ensure such a project financially. The project, I will remind you of which not only the RFU spoke out (it can always be dispersed and recruited there other people), but also FIFA-the highest football instance, without the approval of which it is impossible to carry out anything in principle. The implementation of this project would lead to revolutionary changes in the entire structure of world football - but no one is interested in this.
Nevertheless, the organizing committee continues to sit, continues to contrary to holding meetings, giving briefings, sending invitations and announcing the start of a new tournament almost a year later. Why the hell do they need him? Why not invest this billion, since it is so hunting to spend money of the state corporations, in the Russian Championship? Or in preparation for the World Cup? We still have a world championship in 2018. Five years later - and there the horse did not lie. And the volume of work is much more than in Sochi. But they stubbornly want to spend money on the United League and nothing else.
Because it is politics. And the sport has nothing to do with it. Putin realized that sport and the largest sporting events are the best advertising of his achievements. Like in Soviet times. Thanks to sports, you can really start the process of collecting land. After all, there is already a continental hockey league, where in one championship financed to a large extent also the structures of Gazprom, clubs from the whole former union, including from Latvia, perform. And also the basketball unified VTB League, where the whole post -Soviet space plays with the money of this bank. And in addition to former compatriots, they drive a puck and throw the Czech, Poles, Slovaks, and plans for expanding these leagues to Europe are truly Napoleonic. For our money, we will create international championships in various sports - and in this way we will penetrate these countries.
Everything is more modest in football. If only because there are simply no competitive clubs, except Russia and Ukraine, in the vastness of the former union. But after all, to involve only Ukraine in its orbit with the help of the most popular sport - is it not tempting?
The Ukrainians themselves - by the way! - So far they are silent. And certainly they are not delighted. And from a sports and from a political point of view, the project is unprofitable for them. But when you are offered a billion for ten times less, many will think. This billion is a special, deliberately crazy price, so that even the most persistent trembling. And it is clear that Gazprom, who is ready to spend the wildest money on the championship itself, will find no less significant “arguments” in order to sell a favorable solution in international football structures. At least, Gazpromov thinks that they are able to buy anything, because, it seems to them, everything is sold and bought in this world. Especially if you are not at all limited in funds.
I don’t think, however, that something will come out of this venture. Ukrainians will not dare to participate in the project. And what can be the Russian-Ukrainian league without Ukraine? And international officials will not risk, because it will be an open bribe in homeric dimensions and after such a reputation will be nothing left.
If, nevertheless, in some way, the idea succeeds, this will only accelerate the process of not collecting land, but the collapse of the state. With all our problems and widespread holes, throwing a billion euros to the wind annually - this is too much.