«Confederations Cup, in the essence, constitutes a friendly tournament»

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Business school RMA recently has held the president of PFC CSKA Eugene Giner’s workshop for the students of the faculty «Sport Industry Management», during which he assessed the performance of the Russian national team at the Confederations Cup 2017.

«It is apparent, the result, which we showed in the Confederations Cup, is bad. The question is why are we so agitated by this Cup in the first place? By the way, it is entirely possible that it is its last time being held in this format, as you may have heard. As well as it is known to have originally been designed as entertainment for the Saudi King, so that he could look at the famous football players. Thus, the value of this Cup, in terms of sport, is very little. Yes, FIFA may need it as a sort of rehearsal before the World Cup in order to see that the stadiums are working, the airports are ready to welcome the fans, the trains smoothly carry them back and forth, and so on, and so on. But essentially, the status of the games in this tournament is still closer to the friendly one. The Germans, for example, brought their second team. So I think the main objective for us in tournament has been reached, the coaches were able to look at the team in action, in comparison with the good rivals, and draw conclusions on what should be improved and what needs work on. We should not have counted on anything more than that,« — Giner said.

«One more moment when we are talking about the results of the team and why they turned out to be like that. This is quite clear. We simply lack players, we do not have enough quality training centers. We are a country of 150 million people, and what is beyond the Urals? Practically nothing. So, this is the problem.

Plus the limit… This, of course, is a huge mistake. The situation in which a player with a Russian passport has the advantage over others only due to the fact he has this passport. He gets on the field and is paid a huge salary. This alone destroys the main sports principle, the principle of competition. It discourages players, does not allow them to grow, it kills the desire to participate in stronger championships, to improve. I guarantee you that Kokorin, who as they say gets here 5 million rubles, in a good European championship he would not make more than 700 000. I am not talking about top clubs where the players are able to get more and more. But a player of Kokorin level will not be so welcome there, so why settle for 700 000 when he gets 5 million, why should he leave?

In general, if you ask me what needs to be done in order for Russia to become a full-fledged football country, I will say: we need to get rid of the limit, a network of training centers for football players needs to be developed, perhaps taking Germany as a model, an example, where this program has been developed as a public-private partnership, and where it has been able to achieve those results, which all of us now admire.

I have been talking about this for a long time: the need to transform all of the professional football clubs to privately owned ones, because only private clubs can truly be interested in their successful functioning, only a privately owned club can earn effectively and spend efficiently.

And the last thing is about the national team — I think it’s time we stop being embarrassed and start using the opportunities for naturalization of foreign players more actively. They can really strengthen the national team. This is a practice that has been implemented worldwide, many adhere to it, including Germany» — the president of PFC CSKA summarized.