Grandfathers for grandmothers

Businessmen from the city of Lytkarino brought famous Spartak players of the past years to the local stadium to play football with them. The veterans had difficulty moving around the field, and after the match they hurried to leave the lawn as soon as possible so as not to sign autographs. "Georgy Ivanovich, Georgy Ivanovich," loyal Lytkarinsky fans shouted after the former head coach of the Russian national team Georgy Yartsev, who was rapidly leaving the field. Without waiting for a reaction, one of the most daring grabbed the football veteran by the sleeve. “Listen, kid, you hesitated - learn my name first, and then come. Aleksandrovich I!” - the former coach shouted at the fan.

A new type of corporate recreation is developing in Russia: businessmen order not pop stars, but famous football players for their barbecue. Businessmen, having paid a fee to football players, not only play with idols, but often defeat them. Veterans, in turn, can nobly draw: for them, these corporate parties are a chance to earn some money for a living.

"CHARGING IN THE MORNINGS I DO"

Veterans of Spartak went to Lytkarino last Thursday in an organized column from the Kuzminki metro station. One of the first to arrive at the meeting place was the former coach of the Russian national team Georgy Yartsev and the three-time champion of the USSR Fedor Cherenkov. Yartsev was smoking, and Cherenkov looked around with an absent look. “For me, these matches are very important,” Cherenkov tells Newsweek. “I’ll meet my friends here and earn some money.” Now one of the best scorers in the history of Russian football (141 goals) does not have a job, he receives a Spartak pension and disability benefits - in total, according to the footballer, about 20,000 rubles come out. per month. “But I have enough - both for myself and for a gift for the children,” says Cherenkov. But he does not refuse games against businessmen. “Here, I do exercises in the morning,” says Fedor Cherenkov: for commercial matches, you need to keep yourself in good physical shape.

The movement of veterans originated in the 90s, but only now it has begun to bring at least some income to former football players. Former players of Moscow clubs aged 40-50, who once shone in matches at the championships of the USSR and Russia, now receive from $100 to $500 for corporate parties per player per match. Spartak veterans spend less than a full year (from April to October) playing more matches than when they were professional football players: at least 40–50 commercial games per season.

In addition to commercial corporate events, football veterans take part every month in the Everlasting Stars tournament among players over 50 years old. It is played by Spartak, CSKA, Torpedo, Lokomotiv, Dynamo and a team of referees. No money is paid here - therefore the attitude towards the tournament is appropriate. “Once we even wanted to withdraw - well, we don’t have players over 50 years old. So in the RFU they raised such a fuss - they say, they say, there is or not, we don’t care; go play,” recalls Vyacheslav Yegorovich, general director of the club of veterans of Spartak. Lokomotiv is the leader in Stars. “When they were young, they never won against us, but now they are all scratching - they are happy! Yegorovich says. - Everyone laughs at them: people now rejoice at all sorts of pieces of iron [prizes from the Everlasting Stars]. - Newsweek ]".

Yegorovich is right: the main victory in veteran football is not on the field, but in the fight for the client. And here the Spartacists are beyond competition: they are the most enviable rival for businessmen. Spartacists are also the most active in the veteran market - many of them do not work anywhere, so they agree to any offers from wealthy sponsors. “But we won't go anywhere for a penny - we keep the Spartak brand,” the general director of the veterans' club explains to a Newsweek correspondent.

HARD MARKET

Spartak players charge about $500 per person for one match (as a rule, a full-fledged team comes to the game: 11 outfield players plus a few substitutes). In addition, the host side must bear all transportation costs, rent the pitch, and set the table after the match. “We have a scale: one region - one price, another - another. It is also important who we play with: we first find out everything about the opponent, and then we say how much it costs, ”Vyacheslav Yegorovich reveals the simple secret of business success.

The business acumen of the general director of Spartak is noticeable in everything. During a conversation with a Newsweek correspondent, he even asked: “How many businessmen do you have there among your readers? I was told that your magazine is a trump card. Does anyone want to play football? Still, the European Championship is coming soon…”

The CEO keeps a close eye on his team's commercial matches, carefully scribbling lineups and scores from every game since 1996 into a thick red diary. This document is almost secret - it also contains financial statements for all matches played with the exact indication of fees. One of the favorite places, according to this book and the memoirs of Vyacheslav Yegorovich, is Kazakhstan. “In Karaganda, receptions are simply stunned! - Yegorovich praises the hospitable Kazakhs. - Imagine a plane landing at five in the morning. The city is 200 kilometers away. Half we pass - we see some kind of house, a hotel. We look, children are standing in football uniforms, women with bread and salt - and all in national costumes. Then we were taken to breakfast. There, sheep are roasted, songs are sung, and gifts are given. Well done!"

But there were also reverse examples - once, one of the veterans, Alexander Kokorev, recalls, they were invited to St. Petersburg to play with Zenit veterans. “But in fact, I had to play against the Zenit double, young boys, for whom our red jersey is like for bulls,” says Kokorev. - They arranged such a felling on the field - they almost broke their legs. They barely beat us 1:0. Already in Moscow, we learned that the leadership of Zenit promised them big bonuses if they beat us.

However, like artists, football players do not complain about corporate clients. Those, if the Spartacists are too demanding, can invite other veterans. In the modest market of corporate football with veterans, there is fierce competition.

In their youth, the Spartak team competed with Dynamo Kyiv, and now their main irritant is the Stolitsa team of Moscow veterans. Yegorovich calls them "swindlers". “They wrote the names of our players on their posters and programs, but played, of course, without us,” Kokorev complains. “Sometimes clients didn’t even pay them money because of this. What is this business? They just scare customers away like that.”

On the official website of the "Capital" advertising shimmers with all the colors of the rainbow: "Hurry! Sponsorship contracts are free. Still free!" The match with the veterans of "Capital" (from different Moscow teams) costs about the same as with the Spartacists - for $ 5,000, the Newsweek correspondent was promised to bring "12-13 fairly well-known football players." "Capital" does not comment on accusations of using other people's names.

"BUT IT'S POSSIBLE TO SCREAM"

When all the veterans of Spartak were assembled at the Kuzminki metro station, Vitaly, one of the businessmen who organized the match, came out of the large Mirage shopping center. He cheerfully greeted the players, inquired about their health and told a Newsweek correspondent that he greatly appreciates this generation of Spartak for their loyalty to the club. “My son is the same, only he is rooting for Chelsea,” Vitaly boasts. - Recently, in London, Tevez was met in one of the shops (Carlos Tevez is a Manchester United striker. - Newsweek ), so he did not even want to take his autograph. What a devotee!” Veterans of Spartak, after listening to the story, praise the boy, the column moves off to Lytkarino.

Small posters announcing the game are hung around the stadium. The stadium itself, however, is modest: on both sides of the field there are three rows of benches that form a kind of stands: it seems that a maximum of 200 people can fit on them. Nearby is a large scoreboard with the results of the matches of the championship of the city of Lytkarino.

Spartak players were preparing for the game in a dilapidated Soviet rocking chair, located on the territory of the Lytkarinsky glass factory a little away from the stadium. The walls were adorned with posters of bodybuilders, and on the floor were dumbbells and barbell pancakes. “That's nothing, sometimes you have to play on concrete with goals without a net,” says Vyacheslav Yegorovich.

One of the first out of the locker room is Georgy Yartsev. He walks confidently towards the Newsweek reporter's car. "Are you free here?" - strictly asks the former mentor of the Russian team. Yartsev sits in the back seat and sighs heavily - he still needs to get to the central field of the city where the match is being held. During the journey, the former football player talks about what he plays in every match when he is invited, but he does not plan to return to big football yet. “The proposals that I have do not suit me,” Georgiy Yartsev gives out a classic phrase for an unemployed coach.

At the stadium, spectators greet football veterans with shouts and pats on the shoulder - Georgy Yartsev quickly runs away to the center of the field from such familiarity. On the edge for their comrades, Yuri Gavrilov, who came to the game with his daughter and son, and Fedor Cherenkov are puffing. They sign endless papers and balls. Some of the fans even brought a yellowed clipping from the Pravda newspaper and asked the players to sign it.

The game was held in an equal fight: the veterans could hardly run across the field and made the audience laugh with their unsuccessful feints. “Oh, Gavrilov can’t do it with his left foot at all, he’s become quite old,” the father-fan says with annoyance to his son. “But you can neigh,” he notes. The local team often hit on goal, but the balls were constantly caught by Andrey Smetanin, who recently ended his professional career. He played his first match for the Spartak veterans and acted in much the same way as in official games - he jumped for all the balls, upsetting the businessmen who invited him. “We won’t invite him to play again,” Lytkar businessman Gennady Sadkin summed up either jokingly or seriously after the match.

"Spartak" played mainly in the pass and almost without movement. The only one who wanted to show branded Spartak races was Georgy Yartsev. But every time the ball flew faster than the striker. “I can’t run like the wind,” the coach was angry with his teammates.

The match eventually ended with the victory of "Spartak" with a score of 2: 1 - both goals were scored by Fedor Cherenkov. But they did not bring him much joy - after quickly signing autographs, he changed clothes and went home. Georgy Yartsev behaved in much the same way. Hearing the final whistle, he ran up to the Newsweek correspondent and said with undisguised irritation: “Well, where do you go? Where is the car? Let's get out of here quick!" In the car, after smoking a cigarette, the coach calmed down a bit.

FROM SPORT TO BUSINESS

To remain unemployed by the middle of life - such a prospect looms before every athlete. Many of them successfully solve this problem.

Land of Karpin

Football player Valery Karpin is one of the largest developers of the Spanish Vigo, the city where he played as part of Celta. Karpin was the idol of local fans, and this, he says, helped Valery Karpin, SL buy a large piece of building land in the city center. The company has already built one business center in Vigo and renovated another (all premises sold). Karpin's income is enough for sports projects: he sponsors a local volleyball team and owns his own cycling team, Karpin-Galicia.

Wine Larionova

Igor Larionov in 1992, during the lockout in the NHL, ended up in Switzerland for one season. There he played in a modest Lugano club, and after each match, according to the hockey player, the fans delighted with the game brought him 2-3 bottles of wine as a gift. Since then, Igor admits, he began to drink spaghetti not with beer, but with wine. At the end of his career, Larionov created the company Triple Overtime Wine, invested $ 1 million in it and ordered the Australian Kilikanoon to produce wine under the characteristic brands - "Click", "Overtime" and "Hat-trick". The first batch of 2,000 bottles sold out in a few days. Most of Larionov's wines are sold in the States, and more recently they have also appeared in Russia. The income is small. “There is enough money to pay off debts and support a family, this is not oil,” Larionov admitted to Newsweek.

Vodka Nazarova

Andrey Nazarov, like the majority of Enkhael players, decided to “sell his name” while still playing. The first experience was unsuccessful: he invested in the construction of a hotel, but things did not work out. Then Nazarov invested in shares of American companies and small businesses in his native Chelyabinsk. At the end of his sports career, he completely returned to the Urals. Uncle Nazarov was one of the co-owners of a vodka factory in Chelyabinsk - this is how Nazarov vodka appeared. They sold it, however, only in America and not for long. Andrei lived as a businessman for only a couple of years - he was offered to become the coach of the Chelyabinsk Tractor. Nazarov happily returned from business to sports.

Apartments Korneev

Igor Korneev played in the first team of Barcelona in the early 90s, ended his career in Holland, and became a coach there. At the same time, he bought up decaying real estate, reconstructed it and rented it out. If you need a 60-meter furnished apartment in the center of Rotterdam, you can rent it through Korneev's website for €1,100 per month. In the last two years, Igor has been working as a coach for the Russian national team - the business, according to the former football player, exists autonomously.

Bank Bubka

The legendary athlete Sergei Bubka started thinking about business back in the early 90s - he was preparing to leave the sport. He organized the commercial competitions "Stars of the Pole", is the unofficial manager of Elena Isinbayeva. On shares with his brother Vasily, he owns a network of gas stations and bakeries in Ukraine. In 2004, the world pole vault champion became president and co-owner of the Ukrainian bank Rodovid. Sergei Bubka, according to the Ukrainian magazine "Focus", is one of the richest Ukrainians: journalists estimated the capital of the Bubka brothers at $ 370 million.