Krylia lives to see another day
What Vladimir Putin wants Vladimir Putin gets.
The Russian government has stepped in to temporarily save Krylia Sovetov Samara.
As has been reported, the club has experienced a snowballing of debt that had jeopardized their future existence.
But thanks to the backing of the Russian government the club will be provided an operating budget for 2010. Deputy prime minister Igor Sechin was recently instructed by none other than Vladimir Putin to find sponsors to keep Krylia Sovetov Samara from dropping out of the Premier-Liga.
According to statements made today by Putin the Wings will be supplied with enough money to keep their current personnel and an operating budget. Sechin suggested the amount of funding to be between 20 and 30 million dollars, a figure determined after holding talks with the Russian Football Union and local Samara leadership.
For the time being Rostekhnologii, a massive state corporation, is expected to be the prime sponsor of the club but Sechin anticipates that a number of companies within the Volga region will step forward with additional funds.
The RFU’s decision on Samara’s licensing had been postponed until 19 February after club officials asked for the initial deadline earlier this month to be postponed while they searched for sponsorship. It appears certain now that their application will be approved.
In comments made to the press, Putin stressed the importance of saving the Samara club due to its history and passionate, loyal fans. In addition he stressed that the sponsors should consider support in the region’s sporting projects—of which Krylia is but one–to be a fundamental social issue.
Well done Putin!
Whose next year? Tom, KS….. maybe Amkar?
on theKS has a good following and they still can’t survive on their own. This will be the Moscow/Kazan/Zenit tournament sooner or later.
KS has a good following relative to other Russian clubs (see http://football.sport-express.ru/russia/premier/2009/statistics/people/?sort=AvgPeopleHome), but I don’t think their average is really that good. Samara’s population is more than 1,000,000 (and that of the Samara-Tolyatti-Syzran metropolitan area is more than 3,000,000) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samara,_Russia), yet they can’t even average 25,000 for their home games. I’ve made the point elsewhere, and I’ll make it again: given the size of the cities they represent, Russian teams have very poor attendances. And their financial position has much more to do with what external investors or sponsors they manage to attract (whether this means major companies or local government -http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A7%D0%B5%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%B8%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%82_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8_%D0%BF%D0%BE_%D1%84%D1%83%D1%82%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%83_2010#.D0.A3.D1.87.D0.B0.D1.81.D1.82.D0.BD.D0.B8.D0.BA.D0.B8) than with the number of people passing through the turnstiles. Were matchday revenue more of a factor, one (small) improvement might be to expand the RPL to 18 or 20 teams. However, I’m really not sure this would make too much of a difference.
OK, that 3rd link didn’t work, but it was to the Russian wikipedia article on the 2010 RPL, which lists the clubs’ major sponsors and investors.
Hey John. I thought I’d just mention that there has been precedent for the “bail-out” of Krylia. Tom Tomsk received significant funds last year to stay afloat–so, yeah, it has become a sort of trend.
Al: couldn’t agree with you more. There has been much talk about adding teams to the RPL–but given the financial crisis that has seen almost all the teams in the league suffer it makes it even less likely that the addition of more teams would help, especially without them compromising the quality of league even more.