“Football in Russia has become an outcast”: Fedun’s wife explained why he sold Spartak

As you know, the long-term owner of the Moscow "Spartak", the former vice-president of the oil company "Lukoil" Leonid Fedun, made a dramatic decision - to sell his beloved club. The manager announced the sale of 100% of the shares of Spartak and its stadium to Lukoil.

It is clear that such a decision had the effect of an exploding bomb both for the fans of the "people's team" and for all football fans, even despite the fact that under Fedun the club did not indulge too much success: only one championship and one Russian Cup and not a single international cup for 19 years, while Gazprom's Zenit has several times more trophies.

Experts put forward various versions of such a decision, and all of them are legitimate to one degree or another.

Spartak is no longer a family

For example, journalist Igor Shulika writes

“In reality, I already wrote, I repeat, he was a fan, which prevented him from managing the club, because there was a conflict of interest. For Russia, this is a typical story. In the West, you can buy a club as a business project, but in Russia, private football is strictly for the soul. This is not a place where you earn, but a place where you spend a lot.

Therefore, rumors have long determined the controlling stake in Spartak from Fedun either to Petr Aven, or to Leonid Boguslavsky, that is, to fans with money that they were ready to spend. Or they are not ready, we do not know, the deals did not take place, and now Boguslavsky and especially Aven are definitely not up to Spartak.

Fans did not like Fedun as a wonderful gentleman. But he was really weird, because a normal person wouldn't spend that kind of money to play football. And Zarema (Fedun's young wife, editor's note ) appeared when, after the coronavirus, Fedun undermined his health, which, in principle, is also understandable. Here and eccentricity, and to some extent the need.

Insiders say that Lukoil offered Fedun to become Giner, that is, to turn from an owner into a hired manager with a special status. He did not want, firstly, age and health, and secondly, he could not do that. A hired manager cannot be a wonderful gentleman, but Fedun does not know how to do otherwise.

What's next for Spartak?

He was a beloved child who was invested in, spoiled too much and sometimes beaten. But still, parents, home, etc. Let even an unlucky child, but a favorite.

But the parents got old, they had no money because of the sanctions, and they handed over the child to an orphanage. For Lukoil, owning Spartak will simply be a mandatory program, well, if not a suitcase without a handle. Therefore, the times of Fedun will later be remembered by fans with nostalgia. Even in a bad house with a father who is a wonderful gentleman, it is better than in an orphanage with a reasonable director.

So the slogan "Spartak is a family" is no longer relevant ... "

Here are some more comments from social media:

- For nineteen years, if memory does not deceive, the championship of Russia was won once. In the entire previous history of the club ... so few victories in the same period never happened. And this is probably the most objective characteristic of managerial success.

- A whole generation has already grown up, which does not know what happened before Fedun. Now let's try without it. And Leonid Arnoldovich will be an expert on television. May be...

- You know what's the funniest thing? Without Fedun, Spartak will be much worse.

- I don’t know if it will be worse without Fedun, but I know for sure that it definitely wouldn’t be better with him.

- Attention to the question, why does a private oil and gas company need a loss-making non-core asset at the time of the crisis? Maybe it's better to buy something more interesting and not from friendly structures?

- Fedun leaked all his levers of command to the friendly Lukoil. We believe that the owners of other sports clubs will soon begin to fix losses, throwing their assets onto the shoulders of giants close to the budget.

Not Fedun is leaving, an era is leaving

All this, of course, is true, but the main reason is different. She was voiced by a popular football commentator and expert Alexander Shmurnov :

“It's simple. Fedun is not ready to spend his temperament, his strength, his life to lead a club that does not exist in the world football space. Those ambitions that Fedun had, they were satisfied not only by fighting in the Russian championship: any football match, any football season had the main goal - performance in Europe. To bring to the magnificent Napoli or Barcelona stadium he built, and fight them on equal terms, To beat Sevilla 5:1, for example. Spartak is now outside the European, outside the international gaming space. And for Fedun, the landmark for owning and building a club for the future simply disappeared. I believe that not so much Fedun is leaving as an era. And she was stormy, temperamental, difficult to predict, but positive!”

The validity of this judgment was confirmed by Fedun's wife Zarema Salikhova , who took an active part in the life of the club. She wrote a farewell letter about the "doomed Russian sport":

- Football and sports in Russia are doomed to be outcasts for years - this is a sad reality. At the moment, the football community can pretend and promise that everything will be fine, but the industry will not survive without international tournaments, the best players, experience, cooperation. Now we just eat the leftovers of the past.

- Private football clubs will die out as a species without receiving dividends from the main businesses, transfer transactions will be unavailable, software and modern IT solutions, international cooperation in business and the social sphere is already disappearing. Only the monopolies and their monopolistic football will remain. This is not the case in any European country.

- To make the club the way you see it now, I studied at the University of Barcelona, graduating with an “excellent” mark, and thanks to the club’s designers, this was the best presentation of the project in the history of the University. In general, I spent exactly two years of my life, sometimes putting Spartak above the interests of my family and children.

- I still trust only foreign specialists. But there are also pros among Russian specialists.

- Wishes to new managers? Keep what I have done in the last two years"