High purpose sports

Russian sport will return to the Soviet system of management. It will not work democratically to win the 2014 Olympics

Alexander Zhukov was elected president of the ROC by secret ballot. There was no doubt that he would be elected. The only competitor, 73-year-old self-nominated pensioner Andrei Kislov, was rejected long before the final vote. He had no recommendations from the IOC members, no support from the federations, not to mention state guarantees. In the corridors of the ROC, Kislov, a member of the All-Russian Sailing Federation, was only laughed at. The most innocuous comments boiled down to the fact that the years take their toll.

Against this background, the candidacy of Alexander Zhukov looked monumental. Before the vote, Russia's first president of the ROC, Vitaly Smirnov, praised his second successor, noted his fluency in English - this is an unheard-of rarity for the president of the ROC. Smirnov even recalled that Ignaty Novikov, Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers, led the summer Moscow-80 to triumph. So why shouldn't Deputy Prime Minister Zhukov glorify winter Sochi-2014.

SOVIET SAMPLE

Alexander Zhukov became the first official whom the state did not hesitate to put in an important sports post. The IOC charter does not have a separate chapter on who can and who cannot lead the National Olympic Committee. For example, the Belarusian leader is Alexander Lukashenko himself - and no one makes claims to him. But in the Russian charter until 2005 there was a clause according to which a civil servant could not be president of the ROC. In 2005, it was canceled as obsolete.

Now they decided to send the entire current sports system to the scrap. It used to be that they dreamed of making Russian sport independent and prosperous: that the federations themselves would earn and educate athletes themselves. The policy of sports democracy has been actively promoted over the past ten years, but it turned out that for Russian sports it is almost like death. The heads of many federations were engaged in their own small business - they distributed sponsorship money at their own discretion, tried to get as much as possible from the state treasury, promoted acquaintances.

The head of the ROC, Leonid Tyagachev, earned himself a reputation as a weak-willed person: if he scolded someone, then everyone knew that they had to agree, but still do it their own way. “You could talk about business with Tyagachev, or you could listen to music - the effect is the same,” says a source in the leadership of the ROC. The strength test of Tyagachev's system failed in Vancouver: the national team showed the worst result in history, and Time magazine included him in the comic hundred of the least influential people in the world.

When it was finally decided to get rid of Tyagachev, the choice fell on Zhukov also because he always had a reputation as the main athlete in the government - he plays football, is an excellent chess player and even led the chess federation. And Tyagachev was appointed honorary president of the ROC. Now the Russian Olympic Committee has two honorary presidents - he and Vitaly Smirnov. There is no such thing anywhere in the world.

The intrigue whether Zhukov would remain in the government or focus on the Olympic movement persisted to the last. In fact, the combination of two posts is a direct violation of last year's order by President Medvedev that sports should be led not by state officials, but by professionals who can devote 24 hours a day to this matter. But for the sake of Zhukov, it was decided to ignore the presidential order.

But an important amendment was made to the ROC Charter - now the committee will have the position of executive director. This place will be taken by the Minister of Sports of Tatarstan Marat Bariev. It is he who will be engaged in the operational management of the ROC - to control finances and conduct personnel policy. Zhukov himself will not be involved in operational management. His task is to oversee financial reform in Russian sports. And at the same time work as the "Olympic face" of Russia.

The interlocutor in the ROC says that Zhukov himself stopped the choice on Bariev. At first, he considered the candidacy of his assistant Alexander Barannikov, who was responsible, for example, for hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow. But then, says a source close to the government, he decided to find someone who professionally managed the sport. Zhukov oversaw the preparations for the 2013 Universiade in Kazan and knew Marat Bariev precisely from this work.

At a meeting of the executive committee of the ROC, Bariev was actively campaigned for by the influential president of the All-Russian Federation of Rhythmic Gymnastics, Irina Viner. She said that he knows how to solve organizational issues. In favor of Bariev, there was also the fact that in recent years sports in Tatarstan have made a huge step forward. Football club "Rubin", hockey "Ak Bars" and volleyball "Zenith" are the champions of Russia, they are also great successes in basketball.

International experts will also help Zhukov - the head of the commission for improving the activities of the ROC, politician and businessman Akhmed Bilalov, is responsible for the selection and coordination of their actions. He has already assembled a serious team: former IOC marketing director Michael Payne prepared a report on the state of Russian sports, noting that the situation in Russia is no worse than it was in the US before Salt Lake City or in Canada before Vancouver. In the sense that in four years, if you do everything right, you can achieve results. How to do it right, will advise the executive director of the Canadian program "Own the Pedestal" Roger Charles Jackson. They say that the active Bilalov was also proposed to the position of executive director in the ROC, but, according to a source close to the government, Bilalov allegedly refused, because this position is not enough for him.

The government says that the ROC should earn its own money. For example, everywhere in the world the five Olympic rings are one of the most expensive brands. And in Russia it does not bring any profit.

MILLION PER PERSON

Big changes will occur in the federations themselves. We have already sorted out winter sports: new people have either already arrived or will come in the near future. All leaders are approved by the Ministry of Sports and observers from the government. Tough measures are already bearing fruit: representatives of all 12 winter federations were present at the ROC presidential elections, not all of the summer federations were present. It will come to them, promised Newsweek in the ROC. However, they themselves do not feel much excitement around them. “We have London in two years, what changes?” - the President of the Baseball Federation Alexander Ratner is surprised.

In addition to baseball, he also holds the position of deputy secretary general in the ROC, publishes the Olympic Panorama magazine and heads the travel agency of the same name. In April, a scandal erupted around his company: fans began to write angry letters that tickets for the Olympics in Vancouver were sold with a markup of 120%, and the average cost of the tour exceeded 300,000 rubles. The Federal Antimonopoly Service became interested in Olympic Panorama, and now Ratner and his company are being checked.

Ratner himself is not at all complex about this: “They say that we are monopolists, but we are trying to prove that we are not.” According to him, ROC has the right to distribute tickets through the selected contractor.

For several Olympics in a row, the choice fell on the Olympic Panorama, but the scandal erupted right now because society negatively perceives everything related to OCD, Ratner explains. He does not admit any guilt: the client asked for tickets for those events that were not at the disposal of the "Olympic Panorama", so he had to first buy them from another company, and then resell them.

The Athletics Federation also assured Newsweek that no major changes are required of them. On the contrary, it is the athletes who want Zhukov to change the attitude of the ROC towards elite athletes. Last week, the head of the federation, Valentin Balakhnichev, suggested that Zhukov pledge a million dollars for each potential "gold" medalist: enough for scholarships, fees, and doctors. "It won't be a big problem to find $35 million in Russia to train Olympic champions," Balakhnichev said. Zhukov replied that he was thinking in the same direction.

And Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko decided that he would personally oversee the appointment of all head coaches - and only controlled federations would receive money from the state. The first large-scale appointments are scheduled for May 28 - by this date, all federations must announce who they trust with pre-Sochi preparations.