Ex-President of FC Tom announced an inevitable dissolution of the team

The head of the Tomsk regional branch of United Russia, the chairman of the Duma of Tomsk, Sergei Ilyin, does not plan to hold the post of president of the Tom football club.

Ilyin, whose presidential powers expired on December 2, also expressed doubts about the prospects for the team’s participation in the Russian Football Premier League.

“The question of continuing the participation of FC Tom in the Russian championship of the League Prime Minister is very big doubts that this will happen. I am practically sure that this will not happen,” Ilyins told Tomsk at a press conference at Interfax agency. “Hopes that the situation with sponsors will change, no.”

Meanwhile, earlier the Governor of the Tomsk Region Viktor Korus told the agency that, in his opinion, the Ilyini should remain as the President of FC Tom, who closes the Premier League standings.

“He already knows how the club works, knows financial schemes. A new person will have to be trained,” Korus explained.

Tom is experiencing serious financial difficulties: in 2011, the club received support from only one of its last year's sponsors and 350 million rubles of state guarantees from the budget of the Tomsk region. The club’s debt to players and personnel is 144 million rubles, and the regional authorities say that they did not put funds to the budget for the support of FC Tom in the budget for 2012.

In mid -November, President of Ilyin said that the resumption of sponsorship support was possible only after completing the proceedings in the criminal case of a major embezzlement in a club associated with the transition of the striker Pavel Pogrebnyak in 2005.