Glamorous forwarding

Vyacheslav Fetisov left hockey, but not as a noble hero

Vyacheslav Fetisov left hockey, but not as a noble hero...

Vyacheslav Alexandrovich Fetisov, a man burdened with many positions of various levels, publicly announced his refusal from two of them just before the start of the big hockey festival in Riga. This was done in the genre of melodrama, which implies the presence of tears both on the screen and in the auditorium, as well as public outcry in the form of a nationwide gasp and groan.

Tears dripped: Fetisov leaves hockey! He has not come to terms with the system, he cannot exist in an atmosphere of venality of everything and everything, he challenges the businessmen from sports, he is almost an oppositionist and a ready candidate to replenish the ranks, it’s scary to say, opponents of the regime! In general, he said a lot in Riga of such things, from which the most radical conclusions can be drawn.

Only I will not do this - the hero does not give a reason. Today, many bold and desperate glamorous or not alien to glamorous well-known characters have divorced, who have felt the new Kremlin trend - to take a critical look at what surrounds you. This is now allowed. If at the same time you also declare that you don’t want to have anything to do with the backward and hindering progress, then you can become a hero, give a signal “up”, and at the same time solve your personal problems. Place and time are of paramount importance, which Vyacheslav Alexandrovich undoubtedly took into account - as well as the effect of surprise, which impressed even a colleague and former like-minded person sitting next to him (it was at a press conference preceding the All-Star Game), the president of the Continental Hockey League, top manager of Gazprom Alexander Medvedev.

Nobody is going to delete the outstanding player, one of the best defenders of the world hockey Vyacheslav Fetisov from history, and from today's day too. They rarely leave hockey, as they say, “completely”. Fetisov does not count on this, he needed a loud statement in order to make the scale of the loss clear - he will live without hockey, but hockey without him is another matter. He said about the same thing after Rossport was disbanded, which Fetisov led for almost six years. And the current cry of despair also comes not from a great hockey player, but from an official who lost again - or he thinks he lost - in an undercover fight. What is against him are dark forces, and he, of course, personifies the forces of light.

We won’t talk about Rossport, which, indeed, did a lot of useful things (but there was enough of a murky agency in its short history) - things are relatively old. Vyacheslav Fetisov returned to hockey as one of the main ideologists of the creation of the Continental Hockey League, and after some time as the president of the army club native to Fetisov - already being a senator from Primorsky Krai.

In CSKA, it was necessary to clear the Augean stables, as president of the board of directors of the KHL, to raise a new league, Primorsky Krai has enough problems, and Fetisov also headed the commission for the development of physical culture and sports in the Federation Council. All positions required maximum immersion, were in internal conflict with each other, but Vyacheslav Alexandrovich for the time being did not see any contradiction in this (having now managed to reproach his colleague Alexander Medvedev that he does not pay due attention to the KHL due to the heavy employment in the main place work as the head of Gazpromexport).

I suppose it was initially difficult for Fetisov, with his scale and ambitions, to deal with the army club and unravel the tangle of problems there - financial, personnel, gaming. Because, if it was not possible to raise CSKA with a swoop and on the authority of one's name, the club's affairs, moreover, routine affairs, had to be dealt with 24 hours a day. And Vyacheslav Alexandrovich was not carried to his native crumbling palace (which he himself admitted long before the current scandal). And in the KHL, if he did not want to “work as a name”, that is, only to represent, he also had to plow - or, at least, from the very beginning, decide on his powers. The blatant absurdity of combining two hockey posts that are subordinate to each other (the same de facto for Alexander Ivanovich Medvedev) did not bother anyone except the hockey community. Practically nothing was known about the apparent contradictions between the two leaders either - until the last moment, when we learned that Fetisov was not satisfied with the role of a figurehead.

But the main reason for the affront was still the story with CSKA. Everything that Vyacheslav Alexandrovich did as president turned against him. The change of ownership the year before last did not improve the financial situation of the club, the arrival of his man in the person of Sergei Nemchinov to the position of head coach only exacerbated the unenviable situation with the game and results. The president of the club defended Nemchinov to the last, now declaring his comrade-in-arms who holds the position of general manager as a useless coach and person.

This was preceded by a joint appeal by the leadership and veterans of CSKA to the Prime Minister with a request to save the great club from collapse - the request was heard, and the desire of CSKA to fall under the patronage of a particular large company was fulfilled. Novaya wrote about the doubtfulness of such a service - despite the fact that the army club Rosneft (namely, it was bent against its will) was promised mountains of gold, from a complete change of infrastructure to unthinkable material benefits. Now, according to Fetisov, it turns out that in reality everything turned out to be “one continuous farce” and “a mockery of the great name of the club”, that “those people who ruled the club all the time like their toy dream of returning good times for themselves”, that to the club "the boys also came to the bosses - all sorts of relatives of big bosses."

I wonder who Vyacheslav Aleksandrovich was waiting for - the most honest professionals who do not know the word “cut”, experienced and knowledgeable managers, or just people who will come and say: “Take our money and act as you want”? Fetisov is not a boy in public affairs and politics - that he doesn’t know who holds positions in the grain places, and how skillfully the “boys” manage taxpayers' money? I really want to share Fetisov's righteous anger about how new investors are going to run the club, if not for one "but" - I will never believe that the behavior of Rosneft was a revelation for the president of the club.

According to Vyacheslav Alexandrovich, he was offered 30 percent of the budget in exchange for relinquishing his powers, but he did not want to play these dirty games. That is, he did not sell out, unlike his colleagues in the army club, among whom was the legendary coach and patriarch Viktor Tikhonov. According to another opinion, Fetisov was cut off from financial management and actual leadership, based on the results of his not very successful (to put it mildly) three years as president of the club.

I think everyone is good, and Vyacheslav Fetisov in this story, with the undoubted correctness of some of his conclusions, does not at all appear as a noble hero. He was - perhaps unfairly - bypassed, he was offended and decided that it was time to slam the door as loudly as possible. He did not want to admit to a single mistake - even the most obvious one, as with the same Sergei Nemchinov. But he promises to tell a lot more - in particular, about "how the KHL was actually built."

Yes, it is known how it was built - “on the knee”, under the best overseas NHL in the world, in the fight against the Ice Hockey Federation, intrigues and euphoria from the fact that Alexander Ivanovich Medvedev, a big fan of the national sport, brought a lot of money from Gazprom, who covered everyone's eyes.

Actually, CSKA and Rosneft have something of the same alignment. Whose money is the one and ... Well, then you all know ...

But Vyacheslav Alexandrovich Fetisov, it turns out, did not know. By the way, the "Medvedev" league, from which the second person in status leaves (and undoubtedly the first in professional status) - albeit a "crooked", but not the worst project in the history of Russian sports. What is the merit of Fetisov. It's hard to say what will happen to CSKA, because Rosneft probably doesn't have its own Medvedev.