Modern Russia and the People's Game
by Marc Bennetts
Virgin, £11.99
Reviewed by Csaba Abrahall
From WSC 259 September 2008
Russia’s impressive showing at Euro 2008, following recent UEFA Cup victories for CSKA Moscow and Zenit St Petersburg, was the latest indication that Russian football, after a long period of post-Soviet underachievement, is emerging into an era of success. Marc Bennetts’ affectionate analysis of football in modern Russia is therefore a timely one.
Football in Belarus hit a new low in October, with defeat to Luxembourg, but November 19 is the 25th anniversary of its finest hour: Dinamo Minsk’s sole Soviet title success. Jonathan Wilson looks back
“There were people with flowers and kisses and love,” Mikhail Vergeenko remembers. It is that, rather than anything else, that seems most to affect the former goalkeeper as he looks back on Dinamo Minsk’s title success of 25 years ago, the club’s only trophy in the Soviet era. “Nothing organised, just love.”
Russia in 1992 and Spartak Moscow begin their era of dominance. By Saul Pope
The long-term significance
To a background of hyperinflation, widespread poverty and rocketing alcohol-related deaths, Russia held its first national championship for almost 80 years. That previous championship ended in controversy; Odessa were not awarded the 1913 title due to fielding too many foreigners. Now, with the country in chaos, football was hardly a priority – attendances were down almost 50 per cent on 1991. However, these were the first shaky steps towards creating what is now one of Europe’s richest leagues, the Russian Premier League, thanks largely to the vast amounts of money pumped in by those who got rich during the privatisation of former state industries, which started in 1992.
Russian influence on football is not just about buying clubs, as Garry O’Connor’s move to Moscow proves. He will be the first of many from these shores, predicts Dan Brennan
The transfer of Hibernian striker Garry O’Connor to Lokomotiv Moscow has caused quite a stir. In signing a five-year deal that will make him a multimillionaire, the Scottish international has become the first Briton to play in Russia’s Premier League. Now, instead of meandering off for a midweek trip to Motherwell, he finds himself negotiating tricky away fixtures 8,000 miles down the road in Vladivostok.
Communism may have been collapsing around them, but Russian football was healthier than ever writes Saul Pope
The long-term significance
By the time the season ground to a halt in November, football was not the first thing on most people’s minds. During August, President Gorbachev had been held under house arrest for three days as his (and Soviet) power ebbed away. A few weeks after the end of the football season, on Christmas Day, the Soviet hammer and sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time and the USSR was no more. The turmoil that followed spawned a corrupt economic and social system that would soon lead to one former Soviet citizen being able to buy a leading English team and overnight become the richest man in football.