Translated material
Such pain
Such pain
Investigation of how Russian football is arranged on the example of the Sochi club
Dmitry Sukharev
November 25, 2021
International tournaments show that Russian football is in a crisis. But the reform will not begin. The financial documentation of one of the leaders of the Russian Premier League-the Sochi club-shows how domestic football is actually arranged at the disposal of the Agency. The club is owned by the denominations related to the Rotenberg family, and the money for its existence comes from the laying company associated with Gazprom and receiving the money of the "people's property". This violates the rules of Fair Play, but no one will punish anyone, because at the head of Russian football there is also a person from Gazprom.
4: 1
With this account in the summer of 2021, the Russian national football team lost in the decisive match of the Danish national team and flew out of the European Championship with a bang. In the fall, the team could not directly reach the world championship, in a decisive match, losing to the Croatian national team. At the same time, Russian football clubs failed the performance in the club tournaments of Europe - the Champions League and the Europa League. Fans and experts demanded the reform of the Russian football championship. Among other things, the abolition of the limit in the championship for legionnaires, which is poorly affected by the competitiveness of Russian teams, was discussed. However, President Vladimir Putin did not support the abolition of the limit. As a result, the reform of the championship did not begin, and the club is in second place in the current championship, which simply personifies the problems of Russian football. This is FC Sochi.
The son is a football player
Football is a passion, and sometimes the duties of Russian oligarchs and state -owned companies. It is difficult to say what is more in the enthusiasm of football numerous members of the influential Rotenberg family, but there is definitely personal background in this story. In May 1986, Boris Borisovich Rotenberg, the son of one of the Rotenberg brothers, billionaires, who made their fortune with Vladimir Putin and that accompany her numerous state reasons were born. According to Forbes, the Rotenberg family is the richest in Russia. Their fortune is estimated at $ 5.45 billion. Among the main assets are the SMP Bank, construction and oil and gas companies.
Unlike other family members, Boris Borisovich did not occupy high posts in state -owned companies or a business close to the state. He became a football player.
He has an unusual career for the player, who also talks a lot about the Russian championship. Rotenberg wanders from one famous club to another, but does not play any of them, as if they are acquired for any other purposes.
After the purchase of Gazprom in 2005, the Zenit football club also joined the Rotenberg Jr.. It was listed there from 2006 to 2010. For the main composition, however, he never played - he was in an oak, then he was wound on rent - “Shinnik” (1 match), “Saturn” (0), “Khimki” (13), “Alania” (15), “Maccabi” (0). Then there were 5 years spent in the Moscow Dynamo. And again - a bench, rent in other clubs and only 44 matches for all the time. From Dynamo, Rotenberg moved to the Moscow Lokomotiv, which is still listed, but does not really play. In total, over 17 years of his career, Rotenberg played 93 matches, not marked by productive actions, according to the website of Transfermarkt.
During his career, Rotenberg Jr.
8 clubs
It is not known what kind of profit from his career Boris Borisovich himself received - its transfer value is now 50 thousand euros, according to the website of Transfermarkt. But the clubs in which they arranged it clearly acquired something: either additional funding or an administrative resource. In 2013, Boris Romanovich Rotenberg, the father of a football player, became president of Dynamo Moscow. In the leadership of the club there were immediately people associated with the Rotenberg family. For example, Gurama Ajoev, a former vice president of the Night Hockey League, in whose matches, Putin, higher officials and the largest businessmen, were called by the sports director at Dynamo. At Dynamo, Ajoev was remembered by the fact that he released more than 20 players from the club for free, and in return bought from Suleiman Kerimov from the collapsing “Anji” of Russian football stars: Igor Denisov, Yuri Zhirkov and Alexander Kokorin.
The club’s expenses were so exceeded that UEFA punished him for violating the financial Fair-Play and removed from participation in European competitions. Did Rotenberg Sr. spend his money on this? Mostly state. The Gosbank VTB, which owns Dynamo, spent 260 million euros on the club in the period 2013–2015, according to the report of UEFA officials, and the Cyprus company Eflen Constructions Limited, connected with the Rotenbergs, invested 75 million euros into the team at the same time, for which she also received a share in Dynamo UK. developer of the large -scale development project "VTB Arena Park".
The Gosbank VTB spent on Dynamo
260 million €
The Dynamo coach Rotenberg called the future mentor of the national team Stanislav Cherchesov, who favored the Rotenberg, periodically releasing their offspring on the field.
But the teams from Dynamo did not work. Club captain Andrei Voronin publicly mocked Cherchesov and Rotenberg:
“If Cherchesov sees Borya (Rotenberg Jr.) at the basis of-his right. In the next game, maybe the son of Guram (Ajoev) will come out. ”
The most loud scandal happened in 2015. After the played game, Igor Denisov expressed claims to the chief coach, the essence of which was that the composition was not selected according to the sports principle. As a result, he was fined and put up for a transfer.
“What did Cherchesov do? I did it very easily. He ran to Rotenberg - I understand it so ... He complained to him: “Denisov goes against your son” ” - so Denisov later described the essence of the conflict.
It all ended sadly. In 2015, Rotenberg Sr. left Dynamo, and already in 2016 the club for the first time in its history flew out of the Premier League.
It is not surprising that by that time the defender Boris Rotenberg was not immediately in another club, which is connected with his father’s family. In 2016, the football player sat on the bench of the capital's Lokomotiv. By that time, Oleg Belozerov, a protege of the Rotenberg family, was the president of the state -owned company of Russian Railways, which owns the “locomotive”. Previously, he oversaw the road concessions in the government, in which Rotenberg companies participated with unchanging success.
Having transferred his son to the care of the next club, sponsored at the state expense, Rotenberg Sr. took up another football project-Dynamo St. Petersburg. At the time of the purchase of Rotenberg, the club wore a miserable existence, fighting for survival in one of the lower Russian divisions. The team in 2015 consisted of unknown and often comic players, such as the youngest deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, the LDPROVSTS Viktor Sysoev, who wrote the word “national” with a mistake, and once to the question of what he will do in parliament, honestly admitted: “I? Nothing. "
Dmitry Rubashko was appointed general director of the club - his main sports achievement was that he was engaged in judo at Arkady and Boris Rotenbergs. After that, the St. Petersburg Dynamo began a new, interesting and mysterious life.
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Resort romance
As you know, Sochi is a favorite vacation spot and the work of President Putin. It happens there so often that in the Sochi residence he was even built an exact copy of the Kremlin cabinet - in order to hide from the viewers the fact that the president is not in the Kremlin. It was in Sochi in 2014 that a super -cost and superconditional Olympiad was held, which many Russian oligarchs and state -owned companies had to invest in. After the competition ended, the football stadium in Sochi was actually idle. They tried to save his fate with the help of the World Cup in 2018 - a lot of money was invested in the stadium, but after the world championship the meaning of these investments was again in question. There was not a single football club in Sochi, which would be affordable for the stadium worth 30 billion rubles and with a capacity of almost 46 thousand people.
The Rotenberg family came to the rescue. In 2018, the St. Petersburg Dynamo changed the name to Sochi and moved to this resort city, and in 2019 the club entered the Premier League. There was one problem: the new club did not have a composition that could compete with top clubs. And then the football brainchild of Rotenberg in the first, but not the last time was helped by the state gas monopolist Gazprom. In Zenit, there was a need to get rid of a large number of highly paid players. As a result, already in the first season on the route of St. Petersburg-Sochi, 9 players went. Seven - according to a full -fledged transfer, Andrei Mostova and disgraced Alexander Kokorin - for rent. A year later, two more Zenitites left for Sochi, thus 11 players of the main composition had a Rotenberg club. Even the Sochi coach went thanks to Gazprom. Vladimir Fedotov flashed into the RPL, leading the Orenburg club, the general sponsor of which is the next “daughter” of Gazprom - “Gazprom Provych Orenburg”. His transfer to Sochi was instant - it was necessary to hurry, since at that moment the club of Rotenberg was in the last place in the championship.
Where did Gazprom get such concern for Sochi? To understand this, you need to understand the confusing scheme for financing the club from the shores of the Black Sea.
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Football tycoon from Konkovo
Sochi is the most mysterious club of the Russian championship. He hides his true owners, does not reveal donors, and it seems to have no sponsors. Until recently, “Sochi” was the only team in the RPL (and maybe in Europe), which, in addition to the technical logo (PUMA), was indicated on the form only one logo - the racing team of Boris Rotenberg SMP Racing (the funniest about the sponsors of Sochi - lower).
The Agency managed to get acquainted with copies of the Sochi financial documents, the authenticity of which was confirmed by a person familiar with the finances of the club, who shed light on how Russian football works.
The first thing that the Rotenberg family did as soon as in 2019 “Sochi” went to the Premier League was to hide her possession of the club. In the new legal entity owning Sochi, Maxim Viktorov is the main beneficiary, through LLC Evorp UK, he has 78.1% of the club. Another 21.9% - Harutyun Kochumyan. Viktorov is not a stranger to the Rotenberg family. The services of his company Evocorp previously used different members of the Rotenberg family-in situations where, due to the sanctions, they had to disappear from the owners of certain firms. So, Evorp, through the Paue Fund, owned for some time the development company RG-Development after the Arkady Rotenberg came under the sanctions from its founders. The same “Evorp” needed when Igor Rotenberg, the son of Arkady Rotenerg, decided to get out of the capital “Mosenergo” - “Evorp” received 16.29%there.
The financial documentation of the club, which the editors got acquainted, also shows that Rotenberg Sr. and is now personally participating in the economic activity of the club. In particular, in 2020, Rotenberg Sr. paid for half a season in Sochi Alexander Kokorin. It cost 69.5 million rubles.
How effective is Sochi spends money
world transfer, Frenchman Adil Rami, who did not play a single match for Sochi
Transfer of the player of the national team of Armenia, Eric Vardanyan from the Yerevan "Pyunika". Played in the RPL for 6 minutes and was leased to rent
The monthly salary of the French football player Zhanelli IMBUL. One match played for the club. In July 2020, he left the team.
However, as the club’s financial documentation shows, Rotenberg again prefers to spend his money on Sochi. It turns out that most of his football passion is paid by the company associated with Gazprom and receiving state money from it. In order to start getting acquainted with a confusing scheme, we have to go to Ostrovityanov Street in the Konkovo area in the south-west of Moscow, where in 2021 Irina Abdulina bought a regular kopecks in the panel house. This owner of 44-meters of “secondary real estate” is interesting in that she is the main sponsor of the club playing in the elite of Russian football. Until recently, Abdulina was the director and founder of Energoprom LLC. It was this company in 2020 that transferred 1.9 billion rubles (or approximately $ 25 million) to Sochi. It is not known whether this is limited to the entire budget of the club, but, for comparison, the budgets playing in the Premier League of the Khimki, Ural and Lokomotiv clubs are about 350 million, 1 billion and 5.7 billion rubles, respectively.
The total amount of payments from Energoprom Club “Sochi” in 2020 - 1.9 billion rubles
Source: Extract from the bank account of FC "Sochi"
Energoprom is associated with Gazprom, although it is more similar to a “laying company” with the nominal owner and director in the person of Abdulina. Oleg Davydov, who was in the list of affiliated persons of Gazprom Automation (GA), which supplies automation for Gazprom, has been established by Energopom. The Gazstrom Gazprom and the Gazprom's largest contractors were controlled by the GA of Avsholum Yunaev. That he organized a New Year's vacation in 2015-2016 in the Sochi Grand Hotel Polyana and Polyana 1389 Hotel and SPA.
Funding scheme FC Sochi
In past years, Energoprom supplied the GA equipment, but in 2020 he no longer conducted any economic activity, and in 2021 he even announced the liquidation. In other words, a company breathing in the incense with a nominal owner, shortly before the liquidation, transfer almost 2 billion rubles to the football club from Sochi and closes, even expecting to return this money.
Why this was done, they do not explain in Energoprom - Abdulina and her company did not respond to the requests of the Agency. Gazprom, the RFU and the representative of Rotenberg also did not respond to the questions of the "agency".
Their silence is explainable - according to the Russian regulations, the same investor is not entitled to finance the teams playing in the same league - this can lead to sanctions up to detachment from participation in European competitions and sending to a lower division. Now the structures of Gazprom, in addition to the possession of Zenit, are financed by the Nizhny Novgorod football club. From 2018 to 2020, Gazprom Provobych Orenburg also acted as a sponsor of the Orenburg FC, which also performed in the Premier League.
At the public account
Perhaps the reason that companies do not strive to connect themselves with open cooperation with Sochi was that the Rotenberg family is under American sanctions and the likely punishment may threaten their partners. Then it reached a ridiculous. So that in the column sponsors on the Sochi website is completely empty, Chardatavia was brought there. From the documents we learned, it turned out that in 2020 this sponsor paid a million rubles to the football club. True, at the same time, Sochi himself paid Frytavia more than 40 million for the air transportation of the team.
In 2020, the Sochi Club received 1 million rubles from its Frytavia sponsor and paid 40 million companies
Source: Extract from the bank account of FC "Sochi"
Until recently, the only sponsor on the form of the club was the SMP Racing of Boris Rotenberg himself, but it does not seem that he and this sponsorship have to spend money on his own. The fact is that, according to the documents we studied, the main sources of finance for the SMP Racing itself are the same Gazprom and its subsidiary Gazprom Neft. So, in June and September 2020, Gazprom transferred to the accounts of SMP Racing 360 and 40 million rubles, respectively, as charitable contributions. And in December of the same year, the “daughter” of Gazprom “Gazprom Neft” transferred another 648 million rubles to the team’s account. At the same time, the total amount of expenses of the racing team for the year amounted to a little more than 900 million rubles.
For many years, Alexander Dyukov has been working as the head of Gazprom Neft, he is part -time president of the Russian Football Union and a member of the UEFA Executive Committee. That is, a person who should monitor compliance with the rules and regulations in Russian football.
The state finances not only the football hobbies of the Rotenberg family.
For example, Gazprom through Gazprom Export also owns the SKA hockey club, whose general is the novel (aka Michael Oliver) Rotenberg. In the Russian Home Hockey League, Gazprom, also through Gazprom Export, is supported by the Dynamo hockey club St. Petersburg, one of the players there is Pavel Arkadyevich Rotenberg, the son of Arkady Rotenberg.