By Andrew Warshaw
August 2 – Russia’s deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozon (pictured) has issued a veiled attack on the decision by the country’s national airline Aeroflot to sponsor Manchester United rather than pour funds instead into domestic sport.
Last month, Russia’s growing commercial influence in European sport, and football in particular, was underlined with the announcement that United had made state-controlled Aeroflot its airline partner in a five-year deal running until 2018 when Russia stages the World Cup.
The agreement will help promote Aeroflot worldwide but Rogozon suggested the national carrier should adopt a more patriotic strategy.
“Aeroflot prefers Anglo-Saxon football and basketball clubs to our planes? I might invite them for an intimate talk,” said Rogozin on his Russian Twitter account.
Aeroflot does not fly to Manchester but the contract will allow the 90-year-old airline to enhance its brand on pitch-side advertising boards at the club’s Old Trafford ground and on its website.
The airline is already a sponsor of the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, leading Russian football club CSKA Moscow and the Brooklyn Nets basketball team in the United States, owned by Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov.
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