As coach Dick Advocaat celebrated with his Zenit St Petersburg team after they won the club’s first European trophy, his cellphone buzzed. It was Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
“He said he was very proud of what we had done and invited us to come to the Kremlin,” Advocaat said by telephone from St Petersburg, reflecting on the May 14 victory.
Zenit, hometown club of Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, was only the second Russian team to win the UEFA Cup.
Tonight, Zenit line up against Manchester United in the Super Cup, the annual match between the winners of the Champions League and the UEFA Cup. Win or lose, Zenit’s appearance underscores the emergence of Russia as a force in European soccer.
Gazprom, the supplier of a quarter of Europe’s natural gas, has funded Zenit since 2005, raising its annual payroll to more than US$120 million from US$25 million. This week, Zenit broke the Russian transfer record by paying US$44 million for Portugal’s Danny.
Money has flowed into other teams too. Spartak Moscow are run by billionaire Leonid Fedun, vice president of Lukoil, Russia’s largest non-state oil producer. City rival Lokomotiv are funded by TransKreditBank, an arm of the country’s rail monopoly.
“This is not something that’s going to disappear,” said Stefan Szymanski, professor of sports business at London’s Cass business school. “Russians care about football and given the great wealth there, I would expect this to become permanent.”
Still, no Russian club has won the Champions League. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 there has only been one other major European trophy won by a Russian team, the UEFA Cup by CSKA Moscow in 2005.
Nevertheless, the national team and clubs like Zenit have political support. Medvedev and Putin regularly attend soccer games.
“Russia is much more confident now and it wants to be taken seriously as a global actor and sport is part of its projection as a major actor,” said Alex Pravda of Chatham House, a geopolitical research organization in London.
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