By Mark Baber
February 6 – The desperate financial situation of the Russian Football Union (RFU), which has been unable to pay national team manager Fabio Capello’s salary, looks set to be resolved in the next two days as billionaire businessman Alisher Usmanov (pictured) has pledged to grant a loan to the federation to cover the arrears.
Neither Capello nor Oreste Cinquini, the Russian football team’s general manager, have been paid for about eight months with the debt now having reportedly reached 600 million rubles ($9 million).
Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said the RFU would likely be granted a soft loan and “we will settle the issue of the wage arrears to Capello in the next two days. I personally cannot stand this situation any longer.”
The issue has already attracted the attention of the Russian Federal Agency for Labor and Employment (Rostrud) which had demanded 181.5 million rubles be repaid by December 19 – a deadline which was extended by a month, whilst fines of 40,000 and 4,000 rubles were imposed on the RFU and its President Nikolai Tolstykh respectively for the failure to pay salaries on time.
Facing possible suspension from his post, Tolstykh, whose organisation had a budget deficit of 500 million rubles ($8.4 million at that time) in December, has pledged to set up an anti-crisis commission to tackle the RFU’s financial difficulties.
For his part Usmanov, a major sponsor of the 2018 World Cup bid team, was quoted by Russian media as saying: “It is a disgrace when a person who’s working for Russia doesn’t get paid for his labor.”
Usmanov, who lives in London and is a major shareholder in Arsenal FC said: “What can be more important now than worthy play by our national team in our motherland? The team should have all the necessary conditions for proper preparations created for it.”
Russia appears to be developing a habit of having the wages of a foreign national team coach being paid by an oligarch – from 2006-10 Guus Hiddink’s salary was covered by Usmanov’s friend Roman Abramovic, owner of Chelsea FC.
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