January 12 – Russia’s sports minister Vitaliy Mutko has slammed his national football federation over their financial difficulties, their failure to pay coach Fabio Capello for six months and their attitude of waiting for the government to come and bail them out and fix their problems.
Speaking to state news agency ITAR-TASS he stressed that the Russian Football Union (RFU) must act independently and take care of its own finances. He said that he would now be speaking to sponsors to encourage them to continue their commitments to the national team.
“They (the RFU) are facing bankruptcy and they are discussing the limit of foreign players. They did not pay salary for the coach of the national team for more than six months! Again, they gathered, talked and left (referring to the meeting), there is no accountability,” said Mutko.
“I do not want to announce anything, but with such work, the RFU might lose a lot of their sponsors. Who can accept to be a sponsor of a national team, which main coach is not being paid salary? A question rises of where the money is being invested. Negative information about the national team reflects on the image of a sponsor. They might leave one after another. I will have to go myself to sponsors and try to convince them to stay.”
Mutko, who has headed the RFU in the past, said that when he was in charge, he solved all the issues himself and did not wait for help from outside.
“Right now, the RFU thinks that someone else has to take responsibility for financing decisions. But they have to take care of this themselves. They want for me to come and help. I have my own worries. I have 120 sports in the ministry. Next year, we will have 19 important international competitions and I am the chairman of organising committees everywhere. Now we have to prepare for Deaflympics in Chanti-Manskie. When do I do football? I already have the 2018 World Cup under control.”
Russia’s Federal Service for Labor (Rostrud) and Employment carried out an inspection in October and November and revealed that the RFU owns RUB 181.5 million ($3.1 million) in salaries and ordered it to pay by the December 19. After the inspection, the president of the RFU Nikolay Tolstych asked the prosecutor of Moscow to check the legality of the Rostrud inspection.
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