Castigator of football ventures

Oleg Kusov, exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza

Anzor Kavazashvili is one of the most distinguished football players of the Caucasus. He is a winner of a bronze medal in the 1966 World Cup, participant in the quarterfinals in the 1970 World Cup, twice champion of the USSR and twice winner of the USSR Cup, twice best goalkeeper of the country, Honored Master of Sports, and so on. He played for the Soviet national team in the years of its great achievements – 1964-1971, i.e. together with Lev Yashin.

Anzor Kavazashvili has something to tell football fans – both senior football lovers who remember his first steps and outstanding mature playing, and young people who consider football players of Georgia and Ukraine to be foreigners. In his book “The Confession of a Football Maestro” Kavazashvili speaks about his career in sports and the legendary players and coaches who created football history together with him half of a century ago. Such memories are priceless for our football.

However, in his new book – “The Battle of Authority Figures” – Anzor Kavazashvili turns to modern football in Russia. We can read the view of a person who is able and wants to answer many painful questions about the current situation. Many fans dislike the situation, as they don’t understand how the national team can have “the most highly-paid coach in the world” and lose key tournaments; how the wonderful performance of the Russian national team in the domestic World Cup 2018 can be forecast, while children’s sports schools are being destroyed, and clubs are full of foreign players.

In fact, all 370 pages of the book touch on analysis of problems of “the game for millions.” According to many experts, today there are many more such problems in Russia than there were in the years when Kavazashvili played. The author describes these times in detail as well. I think the main difference between the Soviet approach toward sports and the current approach is that in the past it was treated much more seriously. Even his football career confirms this. He began playing football in 1953 in the Batumi team Yuni Dynamovets. Soon the talented goalkeeper was noticed in Tbilisi and sent to a sports school for children and young people. Then he played for Dynamo (Tbilisi), Zenit (Leningrad), Torpedo (Moscow), Spartak (Moscow), and the USSR national team. The young man travelled from a Batumi club to the national team in 11 years, and was among the best goalkeepers of the world.

Is such a life possible in our country today, when 14 players out of 22 in two of the elevens are foreign “professionals” in the Premier League matches? Coaches of Russian leading clubs add fuel to the fire, saying that “they don’t care about the citizenship of their players, the only important thing is the result.” Or when parents of a talented boy cannot afford lessons at a sports school? However, these are general questions, while Kavazashvili analyzes in his book separate examples and key problems of Russian football.

Fish rots from its head, the author of the book reminds, speaking about the management strategy of current football bosses. Kavazashvili offers a serious analysis: “During the 1990s a new system was formed, a new situation in football development, when there were new relations between the subjects, which privatized football and spread their interests and influence in football itself and its infrastructure together with officials…

Today Russian football has turned into its imitation… As a result, the professional and sporting component of football is disappearing slowly and surely, due to the silent consent of society. It is being substituted by the will of certain persons at all levels of the bureaucratic ladder. The point of no return hasn’t been passed yet, and the situation can be changed…

The Russian Football Union has become absolutely outdated as a structure which manages football. The point is not in the methods of management by the current president of the RFU N. Tolstykh, which are based on unclear principles. It is a consequence of the formed practice, which has to be changed. This could be done only if a new structure with a new charter, committees, commissions, legal and functional ties between them under a united management is established… In general it is reasonable to establish a social-state structure for football management in the form of a joint-stock company.”

The author supports his words with numerous examples and documents. The book of the football maestro has many other certain offers. He discusses corruption in sport, which reveals the interests of separate former and current officials. He even names them. I think Anzor Kavazashvili will get more enemies after publication of the book. But he will gain new friends – those who are devoted to football selflessly. Our life is supported by them, including our football. One of chapters of the book is titled “Who is around us – friends or enemies?” The book is not only about football, it is about our complicated life, which is full of injustice and the battle against it.

Anzor Kavazashvili’s view is interesting not only because he knows all football's problems in detail, but also because football is not a commercial business for him, but his truelove career. He can’t stand watching some officials turn his favorite game into cynical trading. They spoke about professional football, but built commercial football – this is almost a verdict ahead of the 2018 World Cup.