| Vyacheslav Fetisov met the attack of the heads of sports federations in a new capacity Despite criticism from the heads of sports federations, Vyacheslav Fetisov’s department has been upgraded in status. The other day, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree providing for the division of the Federal Agency for Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism into two departments: the Federal Agency for Tourism and the Federal Agency for Physical Culture and Sports. Moreover, both agencies will henceforth be directly subordinate to the Prime Minister.
Vyacheslav Fetisov has been striving for this for a long time. As you know, as a result of the administrative reform, his department became subordinate to the Ministry of Health and Social Development, and over the last six months, Mr. Fetisov has made a lot of efforts to regain full independence.
News of the upgrade came just as the heads of Russia's nine largest sports federations launched a massive offensive against Vyacheslav Fetisov, subjecting the agency's work to severe criticism. At the end of last week, the presidents of sports federations and unions presented a united front: football Vyacheslav Koloskov, swimming Gennady Aleshin, hockey Alexander Steblin, wrestling Mikhail Mamiashvili, basketball Sergei Chernov, figure skating Valentin Piseev, speed skating Vladimir Komarov, artistic gymnastics Leonid Arkaeev and handball Alexander Kozhukhov . Everyone spoke at the convened press conference. And each of the functionaries, in a more or less harsh form, complained about the lack of attention to their sports from both the state in general and Vyacheslav Fetisov in particular.
Looking at the list of nine rebellious presidents, it is not difficult to see that their federations have not been able to boast of great achievements recently. And almost each of them at one time had a conflict with Mr. Fetisov. But at the same time, some of them are vice-presidents of the Russian Olympic Committee and occupy high positions in international federations. Moreover, only one person announced his desire to leave his post in the near future - the head of the Handball Players Union, Alexander Kozhukhov. The impossibility of state intervention in the affairs of public organizations, which are sports federations, was once again reminded to all those present at the press conference by the head of the legal department of the ROC, Alexandra Brilliantova, who was recently appointed as Russia’s representative in the Court of Arbitration for Sports in Lausanne.
However, the effect of the joint attack by the functionaries was blurred precisely because of the presidential decree, which essentially demonstrated whose side in the conflict Vladimir Putin was ready to take. Vyacheslav Fetisov himself was on a business trip in Brazil at that moment. There he waited for a phone call from Mikhail Fradkov with congratulations on the change in the agency’s status. There was something to congratulate: a higher status would allow Mr. Fetisov to independently control the distribution of public funds aimed at developing sports in the country. Andrey VDOVIN |
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