Moscow’s Ending of Its Financing of Stadiums Outside the Capital Certain to Anger Officials and Fans in the Regions

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 7 – WADA’s decision to block Russian athletes from competing internationally for the next four years because of Moscow’s continuing violation of rules banning the use of performance-enhancing drugs not surprisingly has generated the most anger in Russia and the most coverage abroad.

            But another development this week is also likely to cast a dark shadow on the future of Russian sports and its ability to attract international competitions, something that has been dear to the heart of Vladimir Putin. That is Moscow’s decision to stop financing stadiums in the regions (russian.eurasianet.org/россия-несущие-убытки-стадионы-чм-2018-отдают-регионам-и-прекращают-финансировать).

            In recent weeks, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has signed orders ending federal financing of seven stadiums in regional centers (Yekaterinburg, Kaliningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-na-Donu, Volgograd, Samara and Saransk) and told the cities they will have to operate them at a profit or subsidize them out of their own budgets.

            Finding enough competitions or charging enough for tickets and media coverage to make these regional stadiums profitable is going to be difficult if not impossible. They have not operated at a profit up to now and are unlikely to in the future. And the regions lack the money to fund them.

            As a result, they are likely to decay and even become unusable, infuriating fans and athletes alike and meaning that any future international competitions will be impossible without yet another wave of massive infusion of cash from Moscow. Eurasianet makes this clear by documenting in detail how large the subsidies have been in the past.

            The news agency also points to the fact that at least so far, the Russian government seems committed to funding the stadiums in Moscow, something that will keep them operating without difficulty and convince many foreign observers who do not venture beyond the ring road that everything is all right.

            But if that funding serves a propagandistic purpose, it has another consequence: further centralization of Russian life with ever more competitions likely to have be shifted from decaying stadiums in the regions to the surviving ones in the capital, adding to the anger that many Russian fans feel about the government even now.

            Moscow’s decision to turn over financing of regional stadiums to the regions will likely have another consequence as well, one that may discommode the center even more: the regions are likely to demand that they be allowed to keep more of the tax moneys they collect and they are likely to be able to mobilize sports fans in support of such a change.