The Sport-Express daily says that some First Division clubs are in favor of a withdrawal from the Professional Football League (PFL).The paper reports that the general manager of Shinnik, Alexander Rozhnov, asked the president of the PFL to create such a league where all clubs of the first division would be included. The VPFL league project already exists. The manager of Shinnik addressed to the head of the Russian Football Union the following document.
The project of the new league includes a proposal to create an amalgamation of clubs in the Russian Professional Football League's image and likeness with its commercial and marketing rights. The aims of the organization are:
- Achievement of an open attitude to the media;
- Broadcasting of First Division's matches and realizing profits from this;
- Negotiating advertising and sponsoring contracts by the league;
- Control over stadiums;
- Organizing contests among the sports school clubs of the First Division;
- Increasing revenues of the new league.
According to preliminary data, the pool of teams could also include Krasnodar, Dinamo from Bryansk, Ural and SKA-Energiya from Khabarovsk. So far the reaction of the head of Russian football governing body Sergei Fursenko, to the initiative is not known. There has been talk for a long time and at the highest level about the need to reform the lower divisions of Russian football. However the idea of a structure which could challenge the PFL has arisen for the first time. It is not clear though why all the questions raised could not be solved in the terms of the PFL. Nobody is against more First Division matches on television, and a profit would be made from it.
But how we can achieve it in practice? The Premier League also has problems with broadcasting. Only the direct interference of the country's government had allowed the continued broadcasting of football matches on the channel Rossiya-2 (formerly Sport). So far the football broadcasting is a social function of television, not a profitable business as it is in the UK or Germany. I can hardly believe that the new league's creation would change the situation dramatically.
There is a catastrophic lack of good modern stadiums in Russia, even in Moscow. This problem should be solved by the government, not the new league. So we can consider the proposition to create a new league as an attempt to attract attention to the problems of the lower divisions or as the beginning of an attack of the leaders of the PFL. Anyway the underlying reason will be clear after the reaction of the Russian Football Union to this.
Giya Saralidze. Exclusively for VK.
