Football action Street Knockout starts in Russia. The deputy head of the executive committee of the All-Russia People's Front (ONF), head of Molodezhka ONF, Igor Kastyukevich said that ”this is not a sport, this is a football informational and physical education campaign aimed at stimulating boys to play yard football and to strive for the best, for victories, even at the level of the team of their yard, street, district, city and then the federal district and, at last, at the level of the best yard team of the country. "
Last year about 35 thousand boys from 14 to 17 years old took part in the action. The peculiarity of the action is that the young men register on the website “street krasava.rf”, create a team and name it by themselves. “Last year there was a team ‘Sons of mother's friend’. There were cases when boys were playing without a coach. There was a whole team from Yekaterinburg, the members of which had notes running ‘we pay attention that children are socially dangerous, their behavior is deviant’. But they played football, thus, football unites absolutely different boys,” Igor Kastyukevich said.
"We invited boys by distributing the usual A4 sheets in the courtyards, doorways in the outskirts of cities, and did not even think that the action would attract so many participants. This year, we think that there will be about 50 thousand participants. Last year we had 2.5 thousand teams in the country, this year we plan to attract 5 thousand of them."
Soviet and Russian football coach, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Physical Culture, Sports, Tourism and Youth Affairs Valery Gazzaev paid attention to the fact that boys who had never attended any professional children's sports school or academy took part in the action. ”The Street Knockout allows children who were not engaged in the sports to create the football teams in their regions and compete for an opportunity to play at the Fisht stadium where the World Championships were held. Last year, four teams reached the semifinals. One team was assembled of them and it played with the professional Premier League FC Sochi. With a score of 3: 1, FC Sochi won, but the match was carried out with children under 17. It was an unforgettable game. There were about three thousand spectators at the Fisht stadium.”
Valery Gazzayev believes that yard football helps to temper the character, personality and leadership qualities. According to him, in the yards, the technique and desire to achieve results are worked out. "Many world stars - such as Ronaldo and Messi - they first played yard football. Thus, they worked out the technique, and in professional football, they improved their skills. Enthusiasts who pay attention to youth yard football do very important work.”
