On July 12, the VTB United League Board was held. Following its results, a press conference was held in the TASS press center with the participation of Honorary President of the League Sergey Ivanov, President Sergey Kushchenko and General Director Ilona Korstin.
Here are the main quotes of the honorary president of the League Sergey Ivanov:
Results of the League Board-2021
The League Board was held calmly, there were no sensations. We have approved the results of the last season, which turned out to be quite unusual due to the coronavirus and the postponement of matches. But these factors did not affect the overall schedule and sports results. It is worth noting that the intensity of the competition has increased, three clubs managed to beat CSKA for the first time in their history in last regular season games- Zielona Gora, PARMA and Kalev. And for the first time in the history of the tournament, the team that took only 4th place at the end of the regular season became the champion. This is also a certain surprise.
We have approved the regulations for the next season. As expected, 12 teams will take part in it. Khimki, for obvious reasons, will not be able to take part, although the management of the Moscow Region team announced that they are ready to play in the Super League – the second strongest Russian league – and in the VTB Youth League , which we were very pleased to hear.
The next season will begin with the Super Cup, which will be held on September 18-19 at the VTB Arena. It will be attended by 4 leading Russian clubs – CSKA, UNICS, Zenit and Lokomotiv-Kuban. I would like to invite all basketball fans to the Super Cup! We will try to prepare this tournament at the highest possible organizational level.
About Khimki and the system of distribution of the clubs’ budget
The vast majority of the League’s clubs are private commercial clubs. That makes me happy because I have said many times and for many years that I am categorically against budget financing of professional sports clubs. Budget funding should be used for youth and children’s sports projects, for the preparation of national teams and Olympic teams. Professional sports should be outside the budget funding. This applies to football, hockey, volleyball, and many other sports. Otherwise, we will have what we have: if we take an opressive football example, this is the Tambov FC, which, it is unclear how it ended up in the Premier League, it is unclear how it reached the end. This should not be the case.
As for Khimki, unfortunately, this is a modern sport. We live in the World where professional teams periodically appear and disappear. Khimki is not the first. I hope that new clubs will appear soon. We expect that Samara will finish building a decent sports arena and will be able to apply for entry into the VTB League, if it finds funding. Theoretically, Khimki can return to the VTB United League.
I personally understand what happened with Khimki. At the beginning of the season, the budget of the Moscow Region team was equal to the budget of CSKA, and according to some expert estimates even exceeded it. But then the only sponsor stopped funding. I will not say publicly why he stopped funding. What happened, the management of “Khimki” should say. So let them explain why the funding stopped. God grant that they will be revived, and promising young players will continue to play in the VTB Youth League.
About the lack of jobs and the limit
You know that there is a limit in the VTB United League, which for some reason no one wants to recognize. There must be at least 6 Russian players in the application for the match. No team plays 6 basketball players, at least 10 players in one team go to the basketball court. This means that at least 4 Russian basketball players must take part in the game. How much time they spend on the floor is a completely different question. This is a question to the coach of a professional basketball club, who is paid money for the result, and not for artificial measures for artificial stay on the site of russian players.
There is a limit, it is executed rigidly. Can you imagine that Shved, Kurbanov and others get little playing time? And in the recent past-Khryapa or Kirilenko? This is complete nonsense. If a player is strong and he is ready to play, then he gets as much time on the court as his foreign competitors. Because the result is important to the coach, and not who is on the court with what passport. At one time there was an artificial rule, which, fortunately, has remained in the past – there had to be two Russian players on the court at the same time. The clubs specifically hired a coach who watched who was on the floor.
As for the training of young and perspective russian players, this is not within the competence of the VTB United League. I understand that this will cause anger and emotions. But the VTB League is a professional sports league that deals with professional competition. They often complain that there is no competition, CSKA wins all the time. But this season, many VTB League clubs have shown that CSKA can be beaten. And the training of young promising athletes should be conducted in the DUBL and in the lower leagues, but there, unfortunately, nothing is being done for this. And if it is done, it is done by the VTB United League clubs.
For example, Anton Kardanakhishvili proved himself well during the qualification for the Olympics, who did not spend a single second of playing time in VTB United League games, but played for the CSKA youth team. If a player appears, then, of course, he is noticed. And the hope is precisely for such basketball players, because the entire system of Russian players training is mostly flawed. Coaches of teams at the children’s and youth level receive money for the results of the team, and I believe that they should receive money for the result in the training of one particular player. If a young player is properly trained even in a children’s team, then he will probably be noticed and he will go further. It is necessary to pay precisely for the fact that the player has advanced to the next level.
And one more note: young russian football and basketball players do not go abroad. I won’t even explain why, it’s already clear to everyone. Do we have few strong championships besides the VTB United League? French league, German, Italian, Spanish. Is there at least one Russian basketball player playing there? This is worth thinking about.
About new teams
We are professional league, we have a regulation that I did not come up with, but for which the clubs voted unanimously. In the VTB United League, you can objectively play only if there is a certain arena and a certain minimum budget. Let’s say 400 million rubles. Last season, Nizhny Novgorod, Zielona Gora and PARMA proved that it is possible to reach the playoffs with such a budget. But if there is no such budget, then the club simply will not pull up the tournament.
By the way, returning to Khimki ,I am very grateful to the former sole sponsor of the Moscow Region team for paying money for the team to finish the season in the VTB United League and the Euroleague. Because if they had not done this, then Khimki would have been forced to withdraw during the season. And this would be a huge damage not only for Khimki ,but also for the entire Russian basketball.
About ecology innovations
I would not like to give the impression that since I am a special representative for the environment, it means that I am planting environmental projects in the VTB United League – this is not so.
We have one long-running initiative that has been picked up by other sports – this is the collection of plastic bottles and glasses during matches. The hockey leagues have already borrowed our idea, the football leagues are still thinking about it, but they are very impressed with such an initiative. Thanks to SIBUR, which collects all these bottles and then sends them for recycling. All these bottles do not end up in landfills.
Today, possible further projects of individual clubs in their own environmental initiatives were discussed. This is quite natural, because the abbreviation ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) is increasingly being used all over the world, where banks evaluate any enterprise or organization they lend to from the point of view of this organization’s approach to ecology, management and social responsibility. VTB United League does not exclude itself from this list. And if it is excluded, then I believe that in 20 years VTB will stop funding the United League for failing to fulfill such conditions that are understandable to the whole world. So we try to keep up with the time.
About the opening of the budgets of clubs and the United League
Around September 10, we will open the budgets of the VTB United League clubs and the VTB League itself. I repeat that we are the only sports league in Russia that fully opens its budgets. You can see everything in them: how much is spent on players, how much is spent on the coaching staff, how much is spent on flights and how much is earned on tickets. And it is not the first year that we have been discovering these figures. I believe that the League is on the right track.
Looking ahead, I will say that the budget of the VTB United League did not suffer a penny, all the sponsors kept their obligations despite the fact that some were in a difficult situation. But we were not hurt. We spend only 9% of the budget on the maintenance of the VTB United League, the rest we spend on clubs. Therefore, the VTB League is an attractive tournament for the teams.
But the teams suffered a little, at least because of the tickets, there was no full occupancy. VTB United League also missed earnings due to the fact that it could not fully fill the arena for the All-Star Game due to coronavirus restrictions. But even the fact that we got 50% is already not bad. In general, the All-Star Game is getting a stable interesting character, because we have very little basketball propaganda.
Match TV began to show more VTB League games, but it would be even better if the League received European money for the rights to show games. This is the problem of any Russian professional sport. All over the world, professional sports mainly live on money from TV broadcasts. We don’t have this, so we are trying to develop something in such a poor situation.
