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Khabarovsk Territory, Mikhail Degtyarev, Governor of the Khabarovsk Territory, as Minister of Sports Russia. Sports correspondent talks about the direction in which the department will move after the departure of Oleg Matytsin.
A minute for professional sports
Dmitry Svishchev made it clear that the priority in the work of the new minister should be the development of mass and children's and youth sports, making it accessible to everyone. Chairman of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin also spoke on the same topic a little earlier, calling the funding of professional clubs and federations a “clear imbalance”, spending “huge money on purchasing athletes” to the detriment of the development of mass sports.
Degtyarev began his speech at the committee meeting by voicing the main task facing the ministry: to increase the number of people involved in sports in Russia to 70% by 2030, and also focused on the development of mass sports, healthy lifestyle, children's and youth sports “taking into account the current state of affairs.” Let's return to the last phrase.
Degtyarev also highlighted among the key issues of supporting SVO participants and their rehabilitation through sports, developing sports in new regions, preserving traditional and cultural values, which include sports, providing tax deductions for those undergoing medical examinations, building new sports facilities (up to 350 annually), establishing the work of universities and secondary specialized educational institutions in the field of sports, licensing organizations providing physical education and health services, financing interregional competitions and major repairs of facilities from the federal budget.
It is easy to see that of the two areas into which the industry called “sport” is divided – amateur and professional – everything that was mentioned above refers to the first part. What about elite sports? When Oleg Matytsin took over as Minister of Sports, he was given tasks in precisely this direction. The withdrawal of Russian sports from the doping crisis, the return to the international arena after sanctions from the World Anti-Doping Agency – this is how the main goals were formulated at that time.
Degtyarev devoted literally one minute of his report to professional sports.
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“There is a question of the entertainment of internal competitions,” he noted and then, quite unexpectedly, linked it with the commercial component of the clubs’ work. “As the chairman of the board of trustees of Amur, I can note that there is an opportunity to earn money. The Amur hockey club has increased its sales income in two years souvenir products, broadcast rights, trademarks doubled – from 100 to 200 million rubles.”
“Entertainment, a market approach to the sale of rights is the way to attract additional funds. Of course, we want domestic competitions to outstrip international competitions in terms of entertainment, we will continue to work in this direction,” added the candidate for the post of Minister of Sports. And this was the only mention in Degtyarev’s entire speech that sport exists not only within our country. Not a word was said about the fact that in a number of its sports Russian athletes continue to perform on the international stage – at least in the open part of the meetings (the question and answer session was held without the press).
New priorities
But still, one important detail can be found that speaks about the reasons for the emphasis on mass sports in the future activities of the future minister. It is the phrase “given the current state of affairs” that appears in his statement. And it’s hard to decipher this other than “under the conditions of sanctions against Russian sports.”
Indeed, when Russian football clubs play without any hope of competing with the strongest foreign rivals, it is difficult to talk about the advisability of multi-million dollar injections into their activities. The same, by and large, applies to most other sports, where our athletes are forced to stew in their own juice. This is, of course, a misfortune – perhaps even a personal tragedy – for an entire generation of our athletes who are deprived of the opportunity to compete with the strongest. And, judging by the unfair actions of international sports structures, they are deprived for a long time. A new generation of athletes is about to enter the arena. And it should appear precisely thanks to the measures that Degtyarev is talking about. Of course, in the current period, professional sports in Russia are suffering – no one denies this. But the shift in priorities that is planned in the work of the ministry is not a final withdrawal from its support, as some may think, not a policy of abolition. This is long-term work, which should also benefit not only elite, but also mass sports. Which means all of us.
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