CSKA Moscow President defends UEFA financial fair play rules

By David Gold

June 16 – CSKA Moscow President Evgeny Giner (pictured), who will speak at the Inside World Football Moscow Forum next week, has passionately defended UEFA’s financial fair play initiative.

The UEFA financial fair play rules will take effect in the coming years and dictate that clubs have to break even over a rolling three-year period.

Giner said: “This programme is important not just for us, but for the entire football community, since European football financial affairs are in need of a serious health check, with 90 per cent of clubs making a loss.

“The amount of losses is increasing dramatically each year.

“Club managements are not in a position to solve this problem independently.

“You’re stuck, you want a footballer?

“Pay more than your competitor!

“Therefore the centralised policy of UEFA and the measures to impose limits under the financial fair play programme are, I think, the only way out of the situation as it now stands.

Giner also spoke about the improvements made in Russian football over recent years, and is confident their Premier League can become one of Europe’s best.

“Over the past ten years much has been done to improve things, though we must do much more.

“If we can solve all these problems, there is without a doubt a chance for us to compete with Europe’s top leagues.

“There are regular meetings bringing together the heads of various clubs, where the main questions facing Russian football are decided.

“Of course there is not always one view about how to solve our problems, but everyone has a right to voice their opinion.

“And as the old Russian saying goes: ‘wisdom is born in the heat of argument.'”

The Moscow Forum takes place on 23-24 June 2011 and Giner will join compatriot Sergei Cheban, the executive director of the Russian Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur executive director Donna Cullen, and Premier League general secretary Nic Coward to discuss how Russia can develop its Premier League in the years leading up to its hosting of the 2018 World Cup.

Giner is the architect of the league’s change to an autumn to spring schedule in line with the main European leagues.

The 2011-2012 campaign which got underway in March will run until the end of next spring, with the 2012-2013 season starting the following autumn.

Under Giner’s stewardship CSKA have become one of the top clubs in Russia, lifting the UEFA Cup in 2005 and in doing so becoming the first club from the country to lift a major European trophy since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Since he became the club’s owner in 2001 they have won three Russian Premier League titles and are currently sitting at the top of this season’s standings.

Giner was also recently elected to the European Club Association.

For more details on the Inside World Football Moscow Forum, please click here.

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