Finnish journalist Ville Turu did not say anything special. Yes, and I personally did not see direct raids on our country. But it is surprising, they say, how this can be in principle: it abounds! But Soviet Sport hasn’t been writing about the same thing for 15 years?!
Almost ten years ago, the phrase of the former Spartak football president, Andrey Chervichenko, burned me. In January 2014, a popular speaker in an interview with the then head of the football department of our newspaper, Sergei Yegorov, said:
– The State should not finance football clubs. They came up with some kind of social burden, although football is fun, that should be done by those who feel like it. And the presence of the state corrupts, because nobody’s money.
– What is your prognosis? Will they pass a law that prohibits the financing of clubs by state monopolies?
– And I can not understand why and take it. The state in these monopolies is the main shareholder, why does it need a law? After all, the state itself can say: everyone, guys, we no longer give money to professional teams. And one company will use this money to transport gasoline, and the other will build more double-deckers…
That’s the whole earring! That’s where all these Finnish tales about infinitely generous – or stupid? – Russians. Money is worth nothing!
An illustrative example of Ville Touru’s revelations:
“A player from the Finnish national team once came to me and said that something rather strange happened: a certain salary was agreed, but when the contract was signed, it was 20 thousand euros higher,” says the source. When mentioned, the general manager replied that “yes, yes, but you are going to bring me those 20 thousand in cash.” I think it was a common practice for the heads of various clubs. That’s how they got rich and no one could catch them. But it was better to leave everything as it was and make sure that the player had his own.
Can you imagine something like that in a purely private NHL, where team owners bite anyone’s throat for their dollar? Nonsense, absurd! But in the KHL, after all, state money, which means … That’s right, draw!
But is this news to us? In 2011, Soviet Sport wrote a lot and in detail about the big scandal that broke out in Cherepovets. Almaz youth team player Dmitry Gromov publicly stated that the club regularly takes part of his salary from him, which is then allegedly redistributed among the youth team players. The case went to court. Someone has lost their job. Gromov was ordered to return everything that was illegally confiscated from him. But the roots of all these outrages remained intact.
For example, back in the mid-90s, I saw with my own eyes how in Setun, after the matches of Krylia Sovetov, a responsible club employee entered the locker room with an impressive wad of dollars. Because why be surprised by the following passage from the truthful Finn?
“In some KHL teams, there was an unspoken rule, thanks to which the coaches received a small additional income. A couple of Finnish players remember how the day after the game, the coach went to the reel to collect the money.
– There was a match at the end of which I received a two-minute suspension. The opponent scored a goal during this time, we lost. The next day, the coach announced that I had been fined 30,000 rubles, about a thousand euros. I asked him what the heck is this and do I really have to pay for it now. The guys said: yes, I have to. I went to the bank, withdrew the money and kindly gave it to the coach, said the former defender of Neftekhimik, Amur, Kuznia, Medvescak, Kunlun Tuukka Myantulya.
That’s how unaccounted for cash keeps walking with us. I swear I can’t imagine anything like that in the NHL! Imagine, Washington coach Peter Laviolette, after a fatal puck loss in overtime, approaches Evgeny Kuznetsov in the locker room and says, “I’m sorry we messed it up? Guilty! I’m giving you a five thousand dollar fine. Tomorrow you will bring cash.
What kind of nonsense? For the NHL, yes, but for us … Yes, not caught, he is not a thief. But the most important thing in this voluminous article of “Ilta Sanomat” are the following statements:
“For many years, the KHL has been an incredible source of income for our hockey players. More than 150 Finns lined their pockets with rubles. Many mediocre Finnish players have gone abroad to build stone houses, beach plots and buy luxury cars.
– We moved there to earn money. If someone says that he left because of the hockey level or because of borscht, then he is talking nonsense, sums up the experienced former KHL player.
The Finns did not agree less than one hundred thousand euros net for the season. At its peak, the net salary reached two million euros. A meager 13 percent tax contributed to high revenues in Russia. The average annual fee for a Finn in the KHL is estimated at 500,000 euros.
And this is what coach Hannu Jortikka, who worked a lot on Amur, said:
– Even Finnish coaches in the KHL have a net salary four to five times more than in their homeland. And in small clubs, I say this about myself. In my teams, legionnaires received more than 500 thousand dollars. Again, clean!
I only have one question: did all these Finnish players and coaches earn monstrous fees at gunpoint in the KHL? No! These millions of euros and dollars, as the author himself admits, to second-rate players, with joy and without the slightest twinge of conscience, were designated and discharged by our highly educated advanced effective managers. Using, obviously, the abyss of the pocket of the homeland’s wastebaskets.
But state money, as Andrei Chervichenko knocked out on granite, is nobody’s money. So why take offense at the Finns? They simply recorded the truth of life, which they found in a foreign land. Of which they do not regret at all. Because, as the author of the investigation rightly pointed out, Russian easy money allowed Suomi trash hockey players to acquire stone houses with beaches and piers, where they ride exclusively in luxury cars.
At the same time, the average salary in Finland is more than 3500 euros, and in Russia – you will not believe it! – 63 thousand rubles. It’s sad sir…
