This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Selling the People's Game Football's transition from Communism to Capitalism in the Soviet Union and its Successor State Veth, Karl Manuel Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 03. Oct. 2021 Selling the People’s Game: Football's Transition from Communism to Capitalism in the Soviet Union and its Successor States K. Manuel Veth Department of History King's College London 1 Abstract My hypothesis is that the structure of football and football clubs in the former Soviet Union adapted and evolved with the rapidly changing political and economic environment of the 1980s and 1990s in the Soviet Union and its successor states. During the time of the Soviet Union, football clubs relied on patronage from the Soviet state, its institutions, state owned companies, as well as local institutions. When the Soviet Union collapsed, football clubs were expected to gain independence from the organizations, or state institutions, and go private. Some clubs were able to sustain their operations by selling their top players to clubs in Western Europe. By the mid-1990s, however, state patronage was replaced by new forms of patronage. The use of the term patronage in this dissertation refers to the political and financial support of football clubs by state institutions, private companies, or individuals (the latter two being only the case in the post- Soviet era). Football patrons use their money and political influence to ensure the financial stability of clubs. After the fall of the Soviet Union, oligarchs and private companies bought football clubs as playthings, for sponsorship, or to legitimize their business operations, and/or to gain political influence. State owned institutions that still owned football clubs rediscovered the political value of football in the post-Soviet world. The popularity of football with the masses meant that football could be used as a political vehicle; this is especially the case in the post- Soviet states where football is often used as a legitimization of business magnates that aim for political posts. The objective of this work is to outline the transition that football clubs underwent, after the death of Brezhnev, under the Gorbachev reforms, to the fall of communism, the Boris Yeltsin years, and finally to the state capitalism of Vladimir Putin. 2 Table of Contents Common Abbreviations 5 Acknowledgement 6 Introduction 9 Economic and Political Reform 9 Patronage and Politics 16 Post-Soviet Football in the International Sphere 23 Football clubs and stadiums as symbols for regional politics 27 Methodology and Research 31 Splitting the Spoils: The dismantling of the Soviet Football Federation and the Soviet Vysshaia Liga 36 Introduction 36 The Soviet Vysshaia Liga: A Short History of an All-Union Structure 38 Professionalization of the League Structure 40 Leading the Pack: Georgia and the Baltic States withdraw from Soviet Football 50 Splitting the Spoils: The new Football Federations of the former Soviet Union 59 Out of the Ashes: The Russian Premier League in the post-Soviet world 73 Football in the post-Soviet Space: From Rivalry to Cooperation? 83 Conclusion 93 Owning the People’s Game: Football Clubs and Ownership Structures in the Soviet Union and its Successor States 97 Introduction 97 Ownership Structures prior to the Gorbachev Reforms 98 Ukraine and the Dawn of Reform in Soviet Football 104 Khozraschet: From Dnepropetrovsk to Union-Wide Structural Reform 111 After the Fall: Ownership Structures in the 1990s 121 A Step Ahead of Russia: Football Oligarchy in Ukraine’s Wild 1990s 131 Football in Georgia: From State Support to State Gangsterism 139 The Oligarchs, Gazprom and the State: Shakhtar, Zenit, and TsSKA, the New Order in post-Soviet Football 146 Berlusconization of post-Soviet football 156 The North Caucasus: Hybrid of State Owned Football and Berlusconization 166 Conclusion 170 The People’s Theatres: Stadium Ownership and Identity in the Soviet and post-Soviet Space 172 Introduction 172 The Luzhniki Disaster - Football’s Chernobyl and the Mirage of Cutting-Edge Sport Facilities 174 Reforming the Sport Economy: Khozraschet in Sport Facility Management 183 Post-Soviet Debris: Stadiums in the Aftermath of Soviet Collapse 189 Stadiums and Identity: The long decline of football Stadiums in the post-Soviet space 192 Russia’s Slow Stadium Recovery 200 UFOs in the post-Soviet Landscape: Ukraine and the 2012 European Championships 205 Back to the Future: The 2018 World Cup and the Renationalization of Russian Sport Projects 212 Conclusion 219 From Amateurs to Professionals: The Development of Player and Coach Contracts in the Soviet Union and the Successor States 223 Introduction 223 3 Factory Workers, and Officers: The Soviet Transfer System 225 The Market Opens: The Gorbachev Reforms and their Impact on Player Contracts 234 The Salenko Case: The Introduction of Compensation Payments 249 The Big Migration: How the Fall of the Soviet Union Changed the European Football Labour Market 255 Import-Export: The Former Soviet Union as Showcase for the West 260 How the New Aristocracy of Russia and Ukraine Bought Europe’s Biggest Football Talent 266 Conclusion 278 Painting the Playing Field: Football and Advertising in the Soviet Union and the Successor States 283 Introduction 283 Consumer Guides and Reklama: Advertising in the Soviet Union 286 Sovintersport and the Capitalization of Soviet Football 293 Adidas and Co.: Sports Gear and Advertising 302 The 1990s: Football Sponsorship and Kapitalizm 309 Post-1998 From Sponsorship to Ownership Sponsorship in Russia and Ukraine 314 ‘We Light the Football’: Gazprom’s Football Sponsorship Empire 324 Land of Fire: Azerbaijan, the Other Gazprom 329 Conclusion 332 Final Thoughts and Conclusion 337 Economic and Political Reform 337 Patronage and Politics 340 Football Stadiums: Between Regionalism and Internationalism 343 Post-Soviet Football in the International Sphere 344 From Communism to Capitalism – Football in Transition 346 Bibliography 348 4 Common Abbreviations AFC Asian Football Confederation BSB Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (Bavarian State Library) CIS Commonwealth of Independent States DFB Deutscher Fussball Bund (German Football Association) DIuSSh Detsko-Iunosheskaia Sportivnaia Shkola (Children and Youth Sport School) EU European Union FA Football Association FC Football Club FFP Financial Fair Play FFS Federatsiia Futbola SSSR (Football Federation of the USSR) FIFA International Federation of Football Associations Finec Leningrad Institute for Finance and Economics GARF Gosudarstvennyi Akhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (State Archive of the Russian Federation) GEL Georgian Lari (currency of Georgia) Goskomsport Gosudarstbennyi Komitet po fizicheskoi kul’ture i sportu (Ministry of Sport) IMG International Management Group LOMO Leningradskoe Optiko-Mekhanicheskoe Ob”edinenie (Leningrad Optical Mechanical Association) PFL Professional Football League RFU Russian Football Union RPL Russian Prem’er Liga (Russian Premier League) RSFSR Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic SCM System Capital Management SDIuShOR Spetsializirovannia Detsko-Iunosheskaia Sportivnaia Shkola Olimpiiskogo (Specialist Children and Youth Sport School of the Olympic Reserve) SDIuSSh Spetsializirovannia Detsko-Iunosheskaia Sportivnaia Shkola (Specialist Children and Youth Sport School) SKA Sportivnyi Klub Armii (Sport Club of the Army) SOCAR State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic TsSKA Tsentral’nyi Sportivnyi Klub Armii (Central Sports Club of the Army) UEFA Union of European Football Associations USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics UkSSR Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic 5 Acknowledgement Expressing thanks for a thesis is a bit like thanking people in a wedding speech, as you want to ensure that you are thanking everyone who was involved in pulling the whole event off. Over the course of four years there were a great many people involved who made this project possible, and I apologize ahead of time if your name is not mentioned. Please feel free to write your name in the margins (unless of course you are reading a library copy). I want to first thank my advisor Stephen Lovell at King’s College London, who was a constant source of ideas, constructive criticism, and encouragement. English is my second language, and Stephen was extremely patient when it came to ensuring that the language was at the highest possible standard, and his tips have not only been fundamental in helping me write this thesis, but have also helped me in my profession as a journalist. Furthermore, I was able to attend Stephen’s class on Soviet History at King’s College London, which was an enormous source of inspiration for my own teaching at King’s and will continue to be when I return to academia in the future. Furthermore, I also want to thank my referees, Manfred Zeller and Edwin Bacon. Their critical questions during the viva have meant that the thesis is now a much stronger product.