Eighty percent of professional football clubs are financed by Russian regions - Mutko
MOSCOW. Dec 9 (Interfax) - There are only a few professional football clubs in Russia that do not use funding provided from regional budgets, Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko said.
"No doubt, 80% of all professional football clubs are now financed by the regions of the Russian Federation. We have literally [only] several private clubs that make money playing in European cups, drawing sponsors," he said at a joint meeting of the presidential council on the development of physical culture and sport and the Russia 2018 Organizing Committee on preparations for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
He said the ministry has developed a bill outlining the procedures governing the creation of and the rights and duties of professional clubs and leagues on the orders of the Russian president.
"The law aims to draw extra-budgetary sources of funding, including [those] from betting houses, betting terminals, and state lotteries," Mutko said.
He said organizations that take bets for the results of competitions do not pay anything to clubs nor the state budget, whereas, in other countries betting houses "must pay everyone on whom they make money."
"We are outlining the financing procedures in the law, Vladimir Vladimirovich. We believe that, of course, the budgets of the Russian regions should continue financing clubs," Mutko said.
He said that some regions use 20-30% of their entire sports budgets to support football clubs. The bill expressly states that public funding should go to clubs' direct activities and it will be prohibited to use such funding to buy players and for payments to agents, termination fees and payments for transfers.
"This money should go to children's sports schools, club structure, sports infrastructure," Mutko said.
