In society

All Abramovich is bad for you!

November 29, 2005 Anton Oresh

The main characters of the sports season, CSKA players, who won the championship and the country's Cup and, for the first time in the history of our football, the European trophy - the UEFA Cup - received gifts on Monday. Gifts, however, turned out to be some strange. The Minister of Defense Ivanov gave coach Gazzaev and his guys pistols and medals "For strengthening the combat community." And the main sponsor of the team and its actual owner of Sibneft broke the contract with CSKA , and it turns out that the best team of Russia was left without a livelihood.
That's great! Now is the time to take up the Ivanovo weapon! Or get something to food with his help. However, it is impossible to say that all this is such a surprise. Just the time for its statement Sibneft chose the most unsuccessful. And so the news is expected. But I can imagine the emotions of the fans: how so, to quit a team that has achieved such success, served as an example of real professional work, an example that we can compete with the best samples in the most cruel sport in terms of competition?

In order to understand how this is possible, it is only worth remembering how Russian sport is contained. Football players, hockey players, basketball players, i.e. Even representatives of the most popular and cash regions, almost nothing earn, in any case compared to those amounts that are spent on them. Why do not earn money - another question for another conversation, but the fact remains: they do not earn. However, the sport is generally unprofitable, including in the West. But the difference between profit and losses in Russia is great as it is nowhere. Especially in recent years, when, in terms of salaries, our gaming leagues have really become one of the most wealthy .

But it is important who covers the difference! We have this either state power represented by regional or city chiefs, or raw materials and industrial giants. Abroad, this can be any corporation that is engaged in absolutely any kind of business, but raw material giants last, and the state is completely in exceptional cases.

Well, and what, you ask, if both of them work at a loss? On the one hand, of course. But, on the other hand, the Western sponsor covers a significant part of the losses, or even everything is entirely due to indirect profit. For example, Madrid Real Madrid plays with the Siemens Mobile logo on T -shirts, and Siemens Mobile is happy to be the sponsor of the most promoted club in the world with all its zidans, Ronalds and Bekhamami, because in return for tens of millions of dollars a year spent on the team, the company will receive tens of million from the sale of produced by him Phones, and at the same time any other equipment.

And what can we have the benefit of Gazprom, Lukoil, Sibneft and other patrons? It is unlikely that even motorists, under the influence of football logos, will prefer one looping another. And no more goods and services for an ordinary fans do the sponsors of our sport. Advertising of the same Gazprom on Mikes is more like a Soviet slogan “fly Aeroflot aircraft. And what else was it to fly?

That is, no direct - and almost no indirect - there is no return from investments in Russian sport. This, by the way, is to the question of our business and its unprecedented rise. What is our business? The one that pumps the bowels, and the one that is engaged in usury is supposedly banks. And nothing more.

So, on one sad day, the leadership changes either in the region, or the bosses in the raw material office are changing, and the new owners are not interesting. But they can also be understood: what the hell should they spend tens of millions just like that, out of naked love for art in the form of sports. And the governors are generally a sin to help professional teams, providing players with contracts at the level of $ 50,000 per month, when they have old people, children, and state employees - and all in poverty.

So, the leadership changes and begins to get rid of “non -core assets” or unnecessary budget articles. CSKA is not the first to be a "non -core asset." More recently, the hockey world was shocked by the refusal of the new owners of AvtoVAZ to finance Lada, and the silver medalists of the last championship of the country dismissed almost the entire composition. AvtoVAZ, by the way, is an exception to the rules, because he is not a raw material giant (unless, of course, it is considered a manufacturer of recycled scrap metal), but the meaning is the same. And the fate of the CSKA football can soon - and in fact, it should be divided by another hockey team - the Omsk Avangard (by the way, the owner of the Champions Cup, the formally strong Club of Europe). Omsk hockey also existed with Sibneft's money and can hardly be considered a specialized asset.

It's time to remember who until recently was the master of Sibneft. Abramovich! Therefore, when everything was picked up with Chelsea - they say, it is necessary to invest in his native teams - I always asked: and the football cup of UEFA, and the hockey champions Cup - whose money was won? Whose money was brought to Siberia to the best hockey player in the world, Yaromir Jagra? On whose money they purchased the Army Brazilians Wagner and Carvalia, without which CSKA would not have won their medals and cups? All Abramovich is bad for you! And there is no Abramovich, and you will not be neither CSKA nor the Vanguard.

There is another fundamental moment here. We say “sponsors”, but in fact it is about the owners. The sponsor simply gives money, hoping to return it by advertising. And in the case of CSKA, a fantastic sponsorship contract with Sibneft was only a way of legalizing this financing. The amount of $ 54 million for three years is a record by any standards. And this is not sponsorship, this is just a direct ownership of the team.

And the charm of parting is that Sibneft, that is, actually Gazprom does not threaten anything for breaking the contract - no penalties and compensation are not provided. What is this sponsor? What is this contract? Our clubs are happy to get money on any conditions without requiring additional guarantees. Sibneft did not give them. In exactly the same way, the new leadership of the “Russian railways” can act and we will lose “Lokomotiv”, Mr. Fedun is tired of spending personal money and Lukoil money on Spartak, and Prokhorov and Norilsk Nickel will be tired of waiting for victory in the Euroleague from the basketball CSKA.

It is unlikely that all this will happen at the same time. Let our rich leagues call soap bubble, which is about to burst, so everything will be at a broken trough, it is more like an old school teacher’s saying: “If all the inhabitants of Moscow, like you, spit on the asphalt, there will be a lake!” Everyone will not spit, and there will be no lake. And all the owners of all teams will not abandon them at the same time, but each of these commands separately at any moment can really lose their welfare source. That's the meaning. If even the most popular and successful are not insured from sudden impoverishment, the rest have nothing to seduce. Anton Oresh

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