ALEXANDER SHPRYGIN. On his business card, lower than his last name, there is the imposing word "president", in the e-mail address instead of the name - the nickname boss, on the windshield of the car - the State Duma pass to travel where others are not ordered. Big, in a word, a man. The leader of the VOB - the All-Russian Association of Fans, a member of the Executive Committee of the RFU - the Russian Football Union. This is the very place on the VIP stand - for especially important guests ...
PERSONALITY
ALEXANDER SHPRYGIN. On his business card, lower than his last name, there is the imposing word "president", in the e-mail address instead of the name - the nickname boss, on the windshield of the car - the State Duma pass to travel where others are not ordered. Big, in a word, a man. Leader of VOB - All-Russian Association of Fans, member of the Executive Committee of the RFU - Russian Football Union. This is the very place on the VIP stand - for especially important guests ...
LEATHER BEDS
- Life is good, Alexander? Watch football from the boss's box - blankets, free drinks, snacks ... Not like in fan sectors under the watchful eye of evil cops.
- By the way, I'm going to write an abundant article on this topic in LiveJournal, the Internet LiveJournal. I have not yet understood the backstage atmosphere for the elite, but it is interesting to watch what is happening. Now, according to my status, I have free tickets and invitations to all matches, it's stupid not to use it. Although I got into the VIP for the first time four years ago at the Lokomotiv stadium.
- Exotic?
- I was struck down by a fashionably dressed lady who, during the match, chirped loudly with someone on the phone: “Honey, I'm at football. It's so weird and cool here! Boys in colorful T-shirts are running around, everyone is shouting around, waving flags. " Then I learned that lodges are different, there is a kind of division. The coolest, of course, are government ones. And the so-called red VIP is considered common. This is the place on the podium and the buffet after the game.
Of course, watching football with a blanket and hot food is more convenient and pleasant than freezing outside the goal. People with money are used to living comfortably, so they want to have all the amenities at the stadium. For example, at Dynamo in Petrovsky Park, none of this happened. Zero service! And in Khimki, where the team is moving during the reconstruction of the old arena, he will appear. Wealthy fans will be able to buy an annual subscription for one hundred thousand rubles and enjoy the game from the business lodge, have fun.
- How much will the ticket for the match cost?
- Five thousand rubles. For a serious person - a penny. It's like going to a restaurant once. But everything will be familiar, familiar. You can even watch the replay on TV while you drink and eat. Of course, the atmosphere in VIP is peculiar, chamber-bohemian. It takes time to get comfortable. On March 7, I was in Luzhniki for the Russian Super Cup. The audience around was completely respectable: the heads of the clubs, sponsors, coaches, honored people - Cherchesov, Simonyan, Tikhonov hockey ... Nobody really shouted or jumped. Everything is quiet, sedate, calm. I will not say that I felt ill at ease, but it was uncomfortable. After all, I'm used to going to football to rest, relax, show off. So you hit the spot with your question, I am conducting a deep philosophical discussion on this topic within myself.
- And the caliper is not offended that they exchanged it for leather lodges?
- There is no such thing even close. I am still available, everyone knows my mobile phone number, the Internet is full of sites through which you can communicate directly with me. Now we are opening an office in Tovarishchesky Pereulok on Taganka, where anyone is free to come. I get into the VIP box a couple of times a year, and I regularly attend the games of the Russian championship, in almost every round. So consider ...
It's easier for me to be behind the goal with fans. On March 28, the national team will play with Azerbaijan, and I will go to the “B” tribune to the guys. Even at the Super Cup between CSKA and Rubin, I looked at the pitch, then followed the stands, read the banners.
- Have you seen the "message" to the Minister of Defense?
- Fans expressed their attitude to the idea of disbanding the army club. It turned out, maybe rude, but concrete.
- The question is not to cross the line of the permissible. How it happened with the fans of "Zenith" at last year's match with Moscow "Dynamo".
- Petersburgers acted extremely harshly with people who dared to offend the memory of the great Yashin. By the decision of the club, thugs will no longer appear at the stadium, they simply will not be sold tickets. Believe me, for those who cannot live without football, it is difficult to come up with a stricter punishment.
- Have you been a fan for a long time, Alexander?
- I got into football for the first time in 1989, for some reason, for the match of “Spartak” with Yerevan “Ararat”, although from the age of five I was rooting for “Dynamo”. At first I used children's tickets, but they were not allowed to enter the stadium without adult accompaniment, so I chose a decent man and asked: "Uncle, tell the controller that you are my dad." I went to every game with a new "father". At one time he kept a diary, where he wrote down how many matches he attended during the season, which trips he took. The formation of Russian football took place before my eyes. As well as the development of the fan movement in the country. Once we were considered a podzabornye punks, but today it is recognized that this is a powerful and well-organized movement.
SALVATION OF THE DROWNERS
- You can move in different directions. For example, along the path of extremism and nationalism.
- It's not our choice, exactly. For some reason, fans continue to stubbornly portray in the form of a violent, always drunk and poorly controlled crowd, recalling fights between various groups, clashes with the police, plastic chairs torn from the stands in the stands, and especially the pogrom on Manezhnaya Square after the 2002 World Cup match between Russia and Japan. But then a thumping crowd swarmed, over which the law enforcement officers lost control, this was not a planned action. Fan associations have changed a lot in recent years. Today, fans are in direct contact with clubs, in a sense they even influence their politics. For example, "Fratria" made sure that the leadership of "Spartak" took into account its requirements, and moved from confrontation to close cooperation. Dynamo fans have strong ties with the team, army men, fans of Lokomotiv, Zenit ...
- Is VOB officially registered?
- Sure. As an all-Russian social movement uniting 53 regional branches. There are seven members of the board, of whom five represent the country's leading fan organizations. We are part of the RFU, we have the right to vote at conferences, and now I am still on the executive committee, I am the plenipotentiary of the fans in the Russian Football Union.
- If I am not mistaken, there are 31 people in the executive committee. What can the lonely voice of a fan change in this harmonious choir? Who will hear him?
- Today it is important for us to declare a position, to designate a presence. And this is already a lot. Not all at once! VOB less than two years of age. While I keep quiet, delve into, listen, study, but, I am sure, if necessary, I will be able to prove and defend the position of the fans. With the active participation of the VOB, the rules adopted back in 2002 are now being finalized, which regulate the behavior of spectators at sporting events. The procedure for carrying banners to the stands, agreeing on their content, and requirements for sound-amplifying equipment will be more clearly spelled out. The document is now being approved by the Ministry of Internal Affairs; if accepted, it will be our major conquest. Although, I will not hide, the fight is tough, the police, of course, are trying to tighten the rules as much as possible, to limit any actions, we believe that everything should be balanced, without excesses.
- Fans themselves often give a reason not to be uncomfortable with themselves.
“But this is not yet a reason to impose draconian measures against everyone. If you follow this logic, Russia needs a dry law for a long time. How else? There are so many alcoholics here! It's easier than ever to impose bans, much more difficult to make every match turn into a truly interesting sight. At the Luzhniki Super Cup, three quarters of the seats were empty. In my opinion, this is horror. Is it normal that the fans didn't come to see the top two teams of the past season? In England or in Spain, people would have burst into such a game, but here, I am sure, many did not even know who was dating, with whom, when and where. People need to be attracted, to find non-standard forms that can arouse interest. Say, what's so scary about an organized fan performance? It's part of the show.
Take the same banners: they can be witty, bright, expressive. And sometimes sad - depending on the situation. In any case, this is not a reason to prohibit them, which the police regularly try to do. For the match against Rubin, the army fans were not allowed to carry a banner dedicated to the memory of their deceased comrade. Say, people have a holiday, there is no need to spoil the mood. Who would the banner harm? This only causes irritation, a desire to do it out of spite. Moreover, in the cold season it is not difficult to drag any banner to the podium, wrapping it around the body. Fig who will find! You can't undress everyone to their underpants.
Rather than spending energy on a “who wins” struggle, it’s better, I repeat, to try to come to an agreement by writing all the details into the law. In the end, you can attract not only lawyers, but also linguists. Let them give an expert assessment of the content of the banners.
- But when the stands start to groan like a monkey at the sight of dark-skinned players, I'm afraid no examination will help. It looks like a diagnosis.
- I look at the situation differently. What you are talking about is the result of buying cheap legionnaires, which undermines the level of Russian football in general. We need to raise our own pupils, and do not bring here in a crowd, I don’t understand who. Agents, trying to fill their pockets, sell third-rate goods, but the fan cannot be fooled by chaff. People have learned to understand what's what. I assure you, no one will turn a strong player against you. Skin color in this situation does not matter.
OILY OILY HANDS
- In a word, Alexander, all chiki-chiki, do you see any problems with manifestations of racism in the stands?
- Of course, the culture of fans' behavior should be improved. VOB deals with this as well. Now we are developing a procedure for joining the ranks of the organization. It's not about drying everything up and putting it on a bureaucratic track. After all, we do not want to banally distribute membership cards and then go to high offices, trumpeting the number of people covered. It will not be difficult for us, as they say, to put half a million people across the country under arms, but this is not the goal. We plan that those who are in our organization will be able to receive some benefits, for example, the leading mobile operator has already offered a special tariff for VOB members. In addition, we are thinking of introducing modern interactive forms that allow recording and tracking information on each fan in a special database.
- Meaning? Is it easier to manage?
- Such electronic cards have existed for a long time, for example, in England and Holland, they immediately show how regularly a fan visits matches. If, for example, there is an important game ahead, for which more applications have been submitted than the number of seats in the stadium, the most active will gain the advantage. Vitaly Mutko liked our proposals, he said that he was ready to pass on to the VOB all questions related to the distribution of tickets for the matches of the national team, leaving himself only what concerns the VIP guests. But we cannot yet take on such responsibility.
- What are you afraid of?
- This is a double-edged question. It is necessary to create a transparent system that will exclude any fraud. There are enough of those who like to speculate, to make an extra penny. I will not hide the fact that as a president with a significant ticket quota, I am periodically approached by various businessmen with "interesting" proposals.
- You, of course, are not bribed?
- I am smart enough to understand that attracting fans to our side will bring the organization much more dividends than momentary profit. Ticket distributors think differently. They take advantage of the scarcity and make the most of it. In order to break this bad practice, we want to introduce an electronic registration system. Then it will not be difficult to trace where and how many tickets have sailed. These are obvious things, another question is that corruption has penetrated deeply into our football, affecting almost all structures. I don't want to say anything bad about the RFU, but ...
- You would try to criticize the organization you are on the executive committee of!
- That's not the point. The union itself does not sell tickets, it does not have a license. Previously, the RFU delegated the rights to someone, now, thank God, it has decided to create its own agency that will keep order. Already today it can be predicted that the match with Germany will cause a stir not less than the game a year and a half ago with England. VOB then withstood the test with dignity, we had about 20 thousand tickets, they were sold to organized fan clubs and sold under strict control. In VOB, in this sense, you will not be spoiled.
- Do you know how they say in Ukraine? The one who holds the bacon always has greasy hands ...
- Right. But I do not forget for a minute that today you can earn a certain amount of money chasing the jackpot, and tomorrow you can lose your good name and never return it. I'm not ready to answer for others, but I will say about myself: there is no amount for which I would put my reputation on the line. The chairman of the board of trustees of the VOB is Sergey Lipatov, president of TTK, which hosted the Russian Super Cup. It was he who helped us organize three free charters for the match with Germany. The free trip was for the fans, but in fact the pleasure cost almost four hundred thousand dollars, which Sergei Vladimirovich entrusted to VOB. This attitude should be cherished, and we understand this very well. Believe me, this is not Shura Balaganov from The Golden Calf, who is able to steal a wallet in a tram, forgetting about fifty thousand in his pocket. Everything is in order with me - both with my head and with my finances.
- How do you make money?
- My personal assets are well distributed. I am the founder of several companies, I am engaged in car service and cargo transportation, I have a share in a fashionable sports cafe, I own land plots in the Pskov region.
- Have you bought a collective farm?
- Something like that. Bankrupt, driven to bankruptcy by the previous careless owners.
- What is the name of? Something like Ilyich's Testaments?
- Agricultural cooperative "Pukhnovo".
- What do you produce?
- While looking for investors. The most valuable thing in Pukhnovo is the land, it will always be profitable. I believe that an agricultural boom will begin in Russia in a couple of years, people from cities will be drawn to villages. But we seem to be distracted from the topic?
SPIDERS IN THE BANK
- Why not? The president of the VOB is a public person, the people should know how the leader of the fans lives. And there are still dark pages in your bio.
- What, for example?
- In 2003 you were accused of robbery and an attack on the leader of the Metal Corrosion group Spider. How did it end?
- The prosecutor's office dropped all charges against me, admitting that she had gone too far. Today I am clean before the law and people. The story dragged on for five years, during which time the case was returned four times to clarify the charges, but in the end they could not incriminate me. Didn't find anything to cling to.
- Have you made up with Spider?
- A year ago we were supposed to meet and discuss everything in private, but, I must confess, I have no desire to see this person. When, due to a banal quarrel, one friend is ready to ruin the life of another, this, you see, is abnormal. If I happen to meet a Spider somewhere, I shake his hand, no problem, but I can’t be friends and communicate as before, it is out of the question.
- Have you spent a year in a pre-trial detention center?
- In "Matrosskaya Tishina". I don’t want to spread too much, I can only say: SIZO is not a test for the weak. I instantly matured, became tougher, more resolute, learned to defend my rights and say the word "no". Now it is useless to try to bend me or break me - it will not work. Of course, prison is a powerful school of life, but I do not advise anyone to rush to sit at this desk. In the detention center, by the way, they say that they have never had such a unique prisoner before, since I still maintain relations with the leadership of the detention center, and I come there from time to time.
- Do you miss?
“Matrosskaya Tishina is undergoing renovations, and I want to negotiate with the local authorities to take out the unique Dynamo panels that have been preserved from the thirties of the last century. They hang on the walls in the administrative building of the pre-trial detention center and are in no way inferior to those that adorn the lobby of the Dynamo metro station. It's a shame if such goodness is lost. Just imagine how many people looked at these panels, what kind of energy comes from them ... For almost two years I tried to convince the head of Matrosskaya Tishina, Fikret Tagiyev, and, it seems, persuaded him. We have good relations, sometimes I even help the employees of the pre-trial detention center with football tickets. Did you know that the director of the Federal Service for the Execution of Punishments, Yuri Kalinin, recently signed an order to award me a medal "For Strengthening the Penitentiary System"? After all, we do a lot of work with convicts, regularly carry teams of fans around the colonies, play with prisoners ...
- The fact that the president of the VOB was in prison surely adds weight to you in the eyes of ordinary fans? Like an authoritative kid.
- Never trumped such things. If I had my way, I would delete this page from my life. There is nothing to be proud of. The well-known chanson group "Vorovayki" wrote a song that they dedicated to me, and shot a video based on it, where the whole story is played out in an artistic form. The presentation is due soon, I hope it will become the final chord, I will put an end to it and I will no longer remember either the Spider or what is connected with it.
Cheap thug romance never attracted me. So that the fingers fan out and snot bubbles. Not my style. And the fan world is far from the criminal world, they are like two poles. Another thing is that sometimes they try to drag us into different stories by force.
- I.e?
- Let me remind you of a delicate ticket topic. When VOB took twenty thousand tickets to England, we broke business for some people. If the tickets went to the box office, they would inevitably end up in the hands of speculators, who, according to the most conservative estimates, would have made a million dollars. People from law enforcement agencies were involved in the scam. Having lost their dibs, they got a big grudge against us and began to settle scores. To the leader of the Spartak "Fratria" Ivan Katanaev, known to many Kombat, they fell home and grabbed into the army, although Vanya was already 26 years old. I am not against defending the Motherland with a machine gun in my hands, but everything looked defiantly provocative, like a punishment, and not a sacred duty.
- Did you interfere?
- Of course. Vanya served six months in the garrison, and then we achieved his transfer to the internal troops, and now he is engaged in performance at the matches of the national team. By the way, after England, the police tried to squeeze Maxim Korotin from the army fan club in every way. And they didn't give him offense, they beat him off.
FACE WITH A SCAR
- That's it, I see, you have a nose with a scar ...
- I was engaged in boxing for three years.
- Do you want to say that you were injured in the ring?
- No, my nose was broken in a street fight, but that was a long time ago. In his youth, he sometimes got excited, needlessly climbed on the rampage. Now I try to avoid conflict situations, although it does not always work out. The last time the battle took place was in 2006 in Kiev, when our Dynamo played against a local there.
- Who will win?
“The Ukrainians turned out to be stronger on the football field, and we were outside.
- It seems then you were still swinging with the Caucasians in Petrovsky Park.
- This is already without my participation. Our guys didn’t share something with the amateur team Vainakh, I came to sort things out. Dispersed in peace.
- And why was Igor Rabiner threatened?
- Again you attribute other people's merits. My close friend and namesake turned to Rabiner, when he ran into Dynamo on a non-business basis and offered to speak like a man. The letter was supported by many fans, and the journalist, instead of answering, went to America ... Then the meeting took place, the conflict was extinguished. As with Vasya Utkin, who initially had a misunderstanding with Vanya-Kombat. In the end, we also hit it off.
- Why, by the way, are you Kamancha? Did you have Indians in your family?
Remember the old Soviet film "The Leader of the Redskins" based on the stories of O'Henry? In 1993 we went with Dynamo to the exit, and one of the guys called me Kamanchi. Apparently, I somehow resembled an eccentric and restless boy from the cinema. So the nickname stuck ...
- Is it true that you are an assistant to State Duma deputy Abeltsev? The one who sometimes backs up verbal arguments with his fists?
- Already the fourth convocation in a row. Sergei Nikolaevich is a serious man ... I have been a member of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia since 1998, I have been listed as a sports advisor to Vladimir Volfovich. We even have the same football addictions. Zhirinovsky has been a fan of Dynamo since childhood, his entire office in the Duma is painted blue and white. But his son Igor Lebedev is an ardent fan of Lokomotiv. And, by the way, largely thanks to the VIP boxes at the stadium in Cherkizovo. The first time Igor got there by accident, and then became addicted, began to go regularly. I was so carried away by the game that last season I sent a deputy request to the head coach why he was not releasing some player at the base.
The All-Russian Association of Supporters (VOB) is going through hard times. On Saturday, September 24, the organization was removed from the membership of the Russian Football Union (RFU), and its leader, Alexander Shprygin, nicknamed Kamancha, was detained by riot police. Over the next two days, it was reported about searches being carried out in the VOB office, as well as about Shprygin's burned-out car. "Lenta.ru" explains the reasons for what is happening.
Eau de Toilette
Let's start with the most recent events that took place on Monday night. VOB President Alexander Shprygin posted a photo of his burnt car on Twitter, calling the incident arson. The victim refused to comment on the incident, noting that he needed to understand the situation.
According to "Lenta.ru" information, the cause of the incident could have been the revenge of one of Shprygin's former supporters on the VOB. Thus, the head of the organization was "informed" about the reaction of the fan community to the events that took place the day before, following which the All-Russian Association of Fans will, most likely, announce self-liquidation in the near future.
It all began on Saturday, when, during an extraordinary conference of the Russian Football Union, law enforcement officers, having arranged a "mask show", detained Shprygin in the toilet of the hotel where the RFU presidential elections were being held. Literally there and then there was information about the massive searches that are being carried out in the VOB office in Tovarishchesky Lane of the capital. The official website of the organization stopped working. It also became known about the exclusion of VOB from the membership of the RFU.
Official information about the reasons for what was happening was contradictory. The newly re-elected President of the RFU Vitaly Mutko said that work is underway against Shprygin at the request of the law enforcement agencies of Germany and France, which continue to investigate the riots organized by Russian fans at Euro 2016. Later it was reported that the detention of the head of the VOB was connected with a mass brawl between football fans that took place on January 31, 2016 in the area of the Sportivnaya metro station in Moscow. Shprygin allegedly acted as one of its organizers.
However, the VOB leader was not officially charged. “The only thing that was searched was at his place of residence and at his mother's. But they did not find anything significant for the initiation of the case. They seized the hard drives, they will be checked, but I talked to Alexander, and he said that there could be nothing serious there. He was released without charge. He himself sees this as an attempt to influence him with the aim of dismissing him from office, "R-Sport quotes lawyer Artur Golovanov, who previously represented Shprygin's interests in the judiciary.
According to Golovanov, the detention is unlikely to be related to the clash of fans. “He has an alibi for this, that day he was at home. And on this occasion, he was summoned and interrogated a month ago. And since there was also no compelling reason to bring charges, they were released. In my opinion, this is a formal reason. "
Speaking about the searches in the VOB, the lawyer said: “Nothing significant was found there either. They seized the hard drives, but Alexander is completely sure that there is nothing in them that has anything to do with the cases in which he was accused, and that compromising him will not be found. "
Also, the specialist considered unauthorized accusations related to the claims of law enforcement agencies in France and Germany. “This is an assumption, like the accusation related to extremism. As of today, there are no compelling reasons for the detention. Moreover, after Alexander left France, he was once again in Europe, crossed the border, and the European law enforcement agencies had no questions for him. Otherwise he would have simply been detained. "
Golovanov noted that Shprygin has not yet made a decision on whether he will take any retaliatory measures, since he understands that "he has encountered serious structures in the face of operational agencies."
Friend of the indians
The real reason for all that happened, according to "Lenta.ru", was the conflict between Shprygin and Mutko, which began to develop after the incidents that happened during the European Football Championship in France with the participation of domestic fans. In particular, the Minister of Sports was greatly upset by the behavior of Russian fans, who staged a massive brawl in Marseille. One of the main culprits of the clashes was the head of the VOB, who failed to ensure the proper level of organization of fan activity.
For the second time, Shprygin upset Mutko when, after being expelled from France, he arbitrarily decided to attend the match in Toulouse with the Wales national team, after which he was expelled from the country again. According to sources close to both sides, Alexander not only did not want to admit his guilt for what happened, but also went into open confrontation after he was asked to quietly leave his post in the VOB.
Shprygin was guaranteed immunity and a decent "golden parachute", but he refused. As a result, Alexander was not helped even by high patrons, whom he acquired at the dawn of the organization's existence, which, according to its charter, was conceived as a unifying force, but eventually turned into a separating one.
The VOB was established on May 25, 2007 at a conference specially convened for this occasion, held in the building of the Russian Olympic Committee. Its creators are officially considered to be Dynamo Alexander Shprygin, who took over as president, soldier Andrei Malosolov, who agreed to become vice president, and torpedoist Valery Puzanov, who was included in the central council of the organization.
The main tasks were to defend the rights of fans as the main consumers of football and sports, to unite fans of different clubs around the national teams of Russia, as well as to promote sports and a healthy lifestyle.
The organization was created under the patronage of the then president of the RFU Vitaly Mutko, despite active opposition to the project from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and even the adviser to the head of the RFU on security Nikolai Sorokin. Rumor has it that Mutko long doubted the need to create a public association of fans who have an ambiguous reputation in Russia due to the large number of hooligan groups, and even nearly fired Malosolov, who was actively lobbying for this project in the RFU.
In 2010, Malosolov still had to leave VOB as a result of the conflict with Shprygin, in which Ivan Katanaev, one of the informal leaders of Spartak fans, took an active part. The riot, organized by representatives of CSKA and Spartak, failed, as a result of which the fans of the aforementioned clubs left the organization. Soon, fans of the St. Petersburg Zenit also distanced themselves from VOB.
Kamancha and his "Indians" began to divide the money on their own, launching a business - including a ticket business - to the fullest. The surging financial flows so turned Shprygin's head that at some point he lost it. In the opinion of the majority of those close to him, recently some of the actions of the head of the VOB had a serious conflict with adequacy. What is even worth the strange persistence shown on his return to France after the country's authorities urged him to refrain from the trip. Mutko himself noticed the changes, who eventually had to rein in the presumptuous creature.
Original of this material© ofnews, 05/27/2015, Photo: Sovsport.ru
I decided to write this material at the big request of people close to me. It was planned to be in a book that I want to publish for the 10th anniversary of Phratria at the end of this year, but colleagues convinced me to do it separately in order to finally dot the I. Why didn't I write and publish this before? There are several reasons. Firstly, I have no one to justify myself to - my friends and close associates already know everything, and I did not see any point in proving something incomprehensible to someone. Secondly, until the last moment I doubted whether it was necessary to submit all this information to the public's judgment - I was sure that in the 5 years that I was out of Spartak's movement, everyone would forget about me and I would be of no interest to anyone, but time was passing, and and speculation around my person not only does not subside, but only multiplies. And so, comrades convinced me to post this material in order to answer all questions and finally close this topic.
The topic of what happened in the winter of 2009-2010.
The All-Russian Association of Fans (VOB) was established in the spring of 2007. The presidium of the organization included, at that time, all the real leaders of the country's leading fan movements. "Conditionally neutral" was elected president Shprygin (Kamancha)... If there was a man from Spartacus - the horses would not accept him, if from the horses - I would never agree with this. And so - the option where the nominal president from Dynamo, on the right hand Spartak, and on the left - CSKA, suited everyone.
The scheme of management and decision-making in the VOB looked like this - all three of us decided strategically - Kamancha, Max Rabik and me. Then there was a slightly more expanded composition in the person of Andrei Batumsky, who at that time worked as a press attaché for the RFU, carrying out direct communication with the leadership of Russian football and the leader of the Lokomotiv movement - Sergei Latysh. It was not difficult for our trio to convince them of something, especially since we never did anything bad - we just came up with new topics for the benefit of all movements, quickly received the consent of the others and implemented them.
The primary task - to raise the prestige of the national team, fill the stands of stadiums at home matches and arrange colorful performances at the games of the national team - was completed quite quickly. We did it with joy, having a lot of experience behind us at our club level. I will not speak for the rest, but I, like Fratria, was really sick with this topic! I constantly came up with something, new performances, organizing trips, new charges for the national team, contacts with partners, attracting sponsors - in fact, I really liked all of this and really did it. The three of us constantly talked - we met in the office, dined in restaurants, went to the countryside for barbecue and that was the key to the success of the VOB of that time - there was trust between us. Fragile but trust.
But the main thing is that our motives have benefited most from this cooperation within the framework of the VOBA. We solved all problems with the administrations of stadiums, cities, police wherever our teams played. They carried out titanic work and our movements were really in the top not only of Russia, but of the whole of Europe! Now it can be said with confidence.
In 2009, the fragile balance of our mutual trust began to crumble. Several times during the year we frankly fired Kamancha in dishonesty - incomprehensible cash transactions, separate meetings with some high-ranking people and every time we raised these questions in our narrow circle - he made surprised eyes, said that you all dreamed it, but if you want accuse me of something - prove it. We simply could not prove anything without real leverage to manage the organization - access to accounts, to accounting (the accountant was Kamanchin) and everything else. All this was superimposed on our and Max's frank dissatisfaction with the fact that nothing happened to the organization itself - it did not develop.
Yes, we filled stadiums for the national team, yes, we staged beautiful performances, yes, we organized trips, but with the rest of the questions, what? They hung like a dead weight - and membership and loyalty system and legal service and a bunch of other topics that were invented long ago, planned, but not implemented. And most importantly, nothing was done to implement them. By the fall of 2009, Max and I decided to replace Kamancha as president of the VOB.
I was then 26 years old, behind me, as I thought, stood the strongest movement of the country and one of the strongest in Europe. All this time, the wind always blew to me only a passing one, in spite of all the difficulties that I had to overcome by that time. I was full of strength, energy and self-confidence. It was not difficult for me to change the Kalancha - after all, the truth was definitely behind us. We prepared very poorly for the "coup", one might say - practically did not prepare. And the most important matches of the national team were ahead. On October 10, 2009, Russia played at home with Germany. The most important game, and if we won, we would go directly to the World Cup in Brazil. The excitement around the match is colossal. The game was supposed to be attended by Putin and Merkel, they were not in the end, but Medvedev, the German ambassador and other top officials of the country filled the Luzhniki presidential box to capacity. When such important matches happen, and even with such an important rival, there is always an incredible excitement with tickets for football. Here we need to make a small digression and talk about the tickets that VOB sold.
The VOB tribune was always outside the gates. We divided it proportionally between all Russian movements and almost never refused anyone - there are a lot of tickets, in Luzhniki there are almost 20 thousand outside the gates and all movements received as much as they asked. For Spartak, I always took from two to three Luzhniki sectors. We always received a commission from the RFU for all tickets sold. According to the official agreement, they received absolutely legally their small agency percentage. This money went into our movements. I can’t say who and what spent them, I can only say for myself and for the Spartak movement - we were all aware of this. The entire council of Phratria always knew how many tickets I took for the national team and how much money we got from them. Since there was never money in Phratria, this commission immediately flew to our own performances, to pay for the office, to close debts and other expenses that we constantly bore. The tickets that I took away for the move were first divided between our football companies, ultras organizations and simply informal associations of fans, and only then were launched into the public sale. I tried to always treat everyone exactly the same - I was not a member of any company or organization and was equidistant from everyone, but at the same time Union always thought that I was in contact with the Alliance more, and the Alliance always believed that I was closer to Union and I sympathize with them more. In reality, both of them were equal for me - the only ones whom I really empathized with and constantly tried to give more tickets were to young ultras. There were several reasons for this. Unlike near-football firms, they did not lease their tickets to the hucksters and did not replenish their common fund at the expense of this. Off-teams poured 50 to 100% of their tickets to the huckster for frenetic matches. Everyone knew this very well and this situation was in all movements. It was not a secret for anyone. But I also could not refuse to satisfy their requests, therefore, cutting them down in number as much as possible, listening constantly to me that "I ah ** l", I tried to give more tickets to young ultras, who regularly went to matches and were crazy - it was necessary to support the national team somehow! That is, VOB tickets for the national team were first divided between the main fan movements of the country, which occupied the central sectors outside the gates, stirred up performances and organized support for the team. Next came the regions, whose applications we also always satisfied almost 100%, since they had tiny applications for dozens of tickets. Next came our friends and partners, who helped us in our work and whom we always helped with tickets, and we just sold the rest through the office. The remnants were always about 20-30% of the total - in the entire history of VOBa - there were only two super-important matches - Russia - England in 2007, where we deprived half of the hucksters of tickets for the game and as a result I quickly left for the army, and Max a few I lived in Turkey for months, while the issue on it was being decided here. And now this game with the Germans. Why am I telling all this. There are a number of important points that will then strongly affect both my fate and the fate of the movement.
The excitement around the match with the Germans was enormous. It's just colossal. The commercial director of the RFU, Petr Makarenko, who, after the same match with the British in 2007, absolutely did not hesitate, arrived in a brand new blue Bentley literally a week after the game, smiling modestly, rubbing his pens. The RFU put a lot of pressure on us to put half of our tickets on the open sale. On the one hand, we were torn apart by our movements, where each party sent me applications from the series - Alliance - 500 tickets, Union - 350, etc., despite the fact that both of them had never taken more than 200-250 before)) ) On the other hand, the RFU pressed on, who leaked most of their tickets to the agencies to the hucksters, and for the correct picture and for the journalists, they had to show that the fans had the opportunity to buy tickets for the game. All this was superimposed on the preparation of a large-scale performance for the entire stadium. We only dreamed of peace.
A couple of weeks before we received the tickets, Kamancha suggested that I drain a couple of thousand hucksters and make money. For all the time of our communication, this was the first and only time. I am ready to swear on the Bible that for all the time that I was in the fan movement, I have not leaked a single Spartak ticket or a single national team to the hucksters. This fateful match with Germany was the first and the last. And so, I heard this proposal in the VOB office, looked at Rabik, who was sitting next to him - Maxim, in his unique manner of God's dandelion, smiled modestly and I agreed. The scheme was invented as follows - we announce a lottery. Anyone who wants to register on the site, receives a serial number, after which we hold a drawing and randomly determine about 4,000 thousand lucky ones. Here I will note once again - these were purely VOB tickets, our movements had already received their standard quota by that time, and we always sold these tickets directly through the office. It was decided to merge half of the tickets to the hucksters. In order to divert the slightest suspicions from themselves, everyone registered on the newly created fanat.ru portal belonging to Championship.com and they were holding the drawing - the Championship General Director, Dima Austrian, was also in the subject. Moreover, he was supposed to become the future president of the VOB, although neither Kamancha nor he himself knew about this yet. We have not yet had an open war with the Kamanches, and I was just starting to work on the Austrian for the future post. Thus, everyone was in the black - we would openly sell several thousand tickets, the fanat.ru portal received tens of thousands of registrations in just a week, the journalists who came to the drawing received a beautiful picture with queues for tickets and a transparent drawing - the RFU was enough, and we each earned about one million rubles. The whole secret was in the winning numbers - we relied on the standard inattention of people. We really registered everyone, we really assigned numbers to everyone, we really entered all the numbers into the computer, pressed the magic button in front of the journalists under the cameras and held a rally. And we actually got more than four thousand winning numbers. But the truth is, no one further checked - all the numbers dropped out twice. That is, each number was duplicated and instead of over four thousand, we actually won two thousand. Which got their tickets, and the rest went to the left to the hucksters.
I dwelled on this episode in great detail for only one reason - it was the only time in my whole life when I took part in such a fraud, and in the future she will have her say.
Original of this material© ofnews.info, 05/27/2015, VOB-revolution 5 years later or winter 2009-2010 that changed the fan world
We lost the match with the Germans. The last game in Baku, in Azerbaijan, where I simply took my friends at my own expense (this money came to me so easily, I parted with it so easily and quickly), nothing was decided. We had play-offs with Slovenes. The first game was at home and again in Luzhniki. It was a month later, on November 14, 2009. There was no longer any excitement - the Luzhniki stadium was half-empty and these tickets were "chew ass." We distributed tickets according to the standard scheme and sold a certain amount of them through our movements. But we couldn’t even sell our stand outside the gates - the people were very disappointed in the national team and no one wanted to go to the stadium to freeze at football in mid-November. At the same time, I regularly sold my Spartak quota and took the money to VOB minus our standard commission, which was then about 600 thousand rubles. And then Kamancha began to push me the topic, they say the RFU does not pay VOB a commission for this match, because few tickets have been sold and we have not even sold our entire tribune. Like, take the commission to the cashier too. To which I sent him away and said that this was the money of our movement, we sold all our tickets and we have a legal right to our commission, and that if someone from the RFU has questions about this, let them call me. And then I made another mistake - I sent Kamanche an SMS stating that we already knew everything about it. I lied - we weren't all aware of the fact that there was still no gathering inside the movement and this one unfortunate text message will later play its role. And a couple of weeks later, on November 29, there was an enchanting game of Spartak in St. Petersburg. She was remembered, first of all, by the fact that our entire squad did not make it to the game because of the beautiful passage in St. Petersburg in masks. Yes, yes - all these masks and much more were bought for this match, including with this money. Buses were organized and other things paid for.
For this topic, I received two days of administrative arrest in court and slept in a cell for two days.
And then December came. And active actions began to overthrow Kamanchi from the VOBovsky throne. The plan was as simple as five kopecks and looked something like this - “Well, Max and I will push, our moves will support us, the rest will also take our side, the Austrian will be the new president, the fanat.ru social network with almost 80 thousand registered users will become ours the main resource and we bring the organization to a fundamentally new level of development. " Yes - everything was just so naive and simple. After all, the truth was behind us ...
We knew that Kamanchi had some connections and patrons among our special services. We did not understand how much the Minister of Sports patronizes him. Mutko... Therefore, we were afraid to shove ourselves directly and looked for serious support. At first we tried to get it from Mutko - we went to his ministry several times, met and talked. They openly stated our position, said why we were not satisfied with Shprygin, why we want to change him and what will happen after that. Mutko's reaction can be briefly described as follows - “do what you want, just don’t touch me, I don’t care who will be president there”. At the same time, we worked within our movements - I carefully met with all the leaders of our off-teams and ALL assured me of their support. Rabik achieved the most important thing - the unconditional support of Yaroslavka, in 2009 this was more than enough for the horse movement. Yugent was in the know, but they were a little distanced, while Rabik was frankly not loved, because all the benefits went to Yaroslavka, and they got crumbs. I, in general, had an even relationship with everyone, I did not reveal all the cards to anyone (which was also my mistake), but at the same time I received support in words from Union and the Alliance and from the School and from the old people in the person of KVO and MB ... Inside the VOB itself, we immediately won over Lokomotiv to our side, Batumsky could not decide for the longest time and, on the whole, expressed sound, balanced concerns, but when Rabik received support from Yaroslavka, he also stood up with us. The last vote of a member of the Central Council - Vasya Petrakov from Torpedo in such a context was no longer very important, so Vasya was simply presented with a fact and he signed a formal piece of paper, where all members of the Central Council of the VOB insisted on changing the president and holding an extraordinary conference on this matter.
In addition to purely fan affairs, we also looked for administrative support. We found her in the person of two people from the Presidential Administration with whom Styopa Grib brought us together. They supervised the fan topic, were aware of all the layouts and expressed their unconditional support by starting to help with lawyers and preparing documents for our extraordinary congress. All these events took place in just a month. Everything was so fast, everything was changing so quickly that now I can't even believe it. But in reality, all the events described are just the end of December 2009 - January 2010.
Before the open phase of our conflict, we last met with the three Kamanchas - Rabik, me and Kamancha. We met in a cafe on Prospekt Mira - the situation was tense to the limit. Everyone already understood everything, but it has not yet been said openly. At the meeting, we suggested that Sasha calmly leave the presidency himself, otherwise, we will do it as we see fit. He did not accept our ultimatum and said "let's fight." On this and parted.
Next came our attack on Shprygin. Straight, open, dashing - checkers bald, valiantly, in general. We unleashed a flurry of attacks on him in the media - we had all the sports media and the future president of the VOBA, an Austrian, coordinated the work with them. All sports media in the country wrote about Shprygin's change, about an extraordinary VOB conference, and at the same time completely ignored him. The only resource that Kamanch had left was the VOB website - it was put down with the help of our friends from the presidential administration. When he published a statement on the RFU website, they also put down the RFU website, which had not worked for almost a week, and Mutko yelled that we were completely stupid and that the RFU website should be quickly restored.
An extraordinary conference was scheduled for January 30, 2010, a sufficient number of delegates from all our regions should have arrived to it to make a legitimate decision to re-elect the president of the organization. We paid for the entire event ourselves - the Austrian gave the money and we ourselves closed tickets, accommodation and other organizational costs for all delegates. But since we were the most complete idiots and had no experience in all these dirty undercover games, we did not calculate at all and did not even think what Shprygin would do in response. And in mid-January we met with him again - by that moment we had an overwhelming advantage on all fronts and Sasha looked crushed. And at this meeting we agreed with him! We agreed that he would sit quietly until April, when we are supposed to have a planned, annual conference, and already at this conference, he voluntarily leaves his post and we elect the Austrian as the new president. It was a victory.
On the same evening, Max and I are happy, we meet Grib and two people from the AP, and at this meeting, completely unexpectedly for us, Mitryushin appears, who had never appeared anywhere before! At first it strained us, but Mitryushin immediately promised Max "to close the issue with the Yugents" and help us in every way. Well, we spread it to everyone - they say so and so, we agreed with the Kamanchas, everything is exactly, in a couple of months we will officially change it at the annual conference.
And here comes a topic to which I still do not have an answer. These characters from the Presidential Administration sharply, without objection, insist that this is all sheer nonsense and that everything can be turned upside down in two months and that we must act according to the previously developed plan and hold the conference on January 30th. Nobody wanted to listen to any arguments - either on January 30th, or "do everything yourself." I remember very well how much it strained me then - I could not understand the logic of this decision and my whole insides resisted such a turn. But after the meeting, I called Kamanche and said that our daytime agreements were canceled, we are holding the conference now and are changing it now. The clock ticked off the countdown tick-tock tick-tock ... For Kamancha it was a strong blow then. And if not for his closest associate Bykovsky, I think he would have resigned himself to defeat. But the older friend didn’t let him fall and they began to practice their game - that is, to drain EVERYTHING that was in the VOBA. It was the twenties of January, the phone was broken - dozens of delegates from all over the country were arriving in Moscow, it was necessary to organize a conference room, invite journalists, organize a bunch of events, prepare just piles of documents. We worked day and night on terrible nerves, and I gradually began to receive alarming calls ... Boxers called me first - we met with Plus, with Fabio and with someone else, whom I simply do not remember now. And at the meeting, Plus says that Kamancha came out to them and offered five thousand euros, so that the Boxers would drain me from the VOB! We then laughed with them, they say how cheap he appreciates me, but they told me - "be careful, Kamancha works for you, but in the movement not everyone loves you like we do." Looking ahead, I will say that he also offered money to other people in our movement for me - whether they took it or not, I don't know, but only Boxers told me about it. I did not attach absolutely no importance to this then - I was so confident in my own abilities, that these attempts of Kamanchi seemed ridiculous to me. On January 28th, Roma Prickly calls me and says I need to meet. We meet in the evening of the same day at their base. And the base of the Alliance was then the office movements OUR, which they guarded and mutilated through which their themes. And so I come to Belorusskaya, to the office of OURS, there is a completely young Alliance on guard, I go up to the hall on the second floor - Roma Koluchiy, Vasya Killer, Ilyusha Ninja and Kiril Kerensky are waiting for me. So and so - we have infa, they say, do you want to tell us anything about VOB? At first I did not understand what the joke was, until Vasya nervously took out of his pocket a pre-prepared piece of paper on which a figure was written - one million rubles and something. “This is exactly how much you got from the tickets at VOBa - we know for sure!”, Vasily blurted out to me. Here I begin to understand that Kamancha leaked this whole topic to them with Germany, but in what context I did not understand and therefore said that this was complete nonsense and either show evidence or goodbye. I perfectly understood that they could not have any evidence other than the words of Kamanchi and, of course, there was none. The conversation in general was very strange with a lot of reservations, it ended with the fact that Kolyuchiy proposed to arrange a general meeting tomorrow before the VOBa conference. On this they shook hands. The next day, a meeting of the Council of Phratria was arranged. Just a couple of hours before the training camp, Kiril Moskal called me and said that we must definitely meet before the training camp. The gathering was in our Hardcore pub on Chistye Prudy and Moskal and I met right on the road on Sakharov Avenue. They did not speak for long - literally five minutes. Kiril decided to warn me that at the training camp I would be "cut from the VOB". At first I did not understand what he meant - then all these meetings, all the bells, seemed real nonsense to me - my brain was on a completely different plane, I thought about completely different things and imagine that any movement (any) can drive its representative into VOBa, at that time, was simply impossible! So that everyone understands - never discussed the Phratry Council VOB affairs! NEVER! At all the Soviets, I talked briefly about what was happening, discussed tickets, discussed leaving (especially when it came to freebies) - but no one ever delved into it, no one gave a damn!
And so I come to Hardcore for the collection. To be honest - such a representative composition of meat was gathered before that only once - on the day when they decided to make Phratria five years ago. I was in the spotlight then, and today, January 29th, 2010, I was the only agenda.
When we all somehow sat down in a separate room where all our training sessions took place, I was amazed and it was at that moment that I finally realized what was happening. There were absolutely everyone! Even young ultras, who have never participated in any Council at all, were invited. The Professor barked from the side, Spiky spoke. He took out his phone and showed me the very SMS that I sent to Kamanche that I took the commission from tickets from the match with Slovenia! This SMS, Kamancha forwarded to Roma and you know what was the presentation of all the movement to me ?! Attention! I was shown that I had no right to dispose of this common money at my own discretion! At that moment, everything inside me exploded and I broke off! I just started yelling that you were all fucked up and why the hell even allow me to make such claims! Here I have to make another, small digression.
Since the founding of the Phratry, over the course of five years, I have always had the entire common fund of the organization! All Phratrian money always went through me! For all five years, for all the time that we have met dozens of times, NEVER, NOT A SINGLE PERSON has asked me a single question about money! Do you know why ?! Because Phratria never had them !!! We always didn’t have enough money for anything! For all the time that I was in charge of Fratria, the club never helped us. Everything that we did, everything that we did, everything that we achieved - was done at our own expense! Where did they come from? With the world on a string! That's so literal! At first, we made a markup of 50 rubles on tickets, then, when I could no longer endure the constant attacks and accusations of buying tickets, we were actively engaged in organizing trips, sometimes earning something from buses, and sometimes flying out in the red. Then we made a membership, started collecting money from firms and initiative groups - all firms were discarded at five thousand rubles a month, and initiative groups at three thousand. Do you know how it happened? Well, when I finally got someone on the phone, the leaders of the companies brought me debts in 2-3 months. Only one Vasya Killer always brought it on time. All the rest - until you call a hundred times. Then they began to develop the store, but it was still very far from its profit. Some of our performances cost over a million rubles! There was always not enough money for anything! Everyone knew very well about this, everyone was aware of it and everyone always preferred to pretend that everything was fine - the battalion commander would still resolve the issue. And the battalion commander resolved issues - he constantly invested his money, ran to businessmen who were rooting for Spartak, begging like a beggar for money for performances, looked for sponsors, negotiated with companies about the lowest prices, went directly to manufacturers in order to buy everything you needed as cheaply as possible! And sometimes he just wrote IOUs, received fabric or paint, and paid later when money appeared. [...]
Now imagine my state, when for the last couple of weeks I have been sleeping 4-5 hours a day, all worn out on my nerves with the VOB conference, which is due to take place tomorrow and they show me that the money that I pulled from the VOB (!) his movement (!), had no right to spend as he saw fit! All five years before that I had the right, but now I don’t, and due to the “loss of trust”, as they say now, I can no longer represent Spartak's interests in the VOBa.
That's the whole result of this collection.
And here is the official statement of Fratry on this matter, which I also wrote, like all the previous statements of the movement:
Lately there have been a lot of rumors and gossip around the situation inside and around the All-Russian Union of Fans. As a result, many of the country's fan movements were drawn into the conflict.
Today a meeting of the leaders of the Spartak fan movement took place. ALL Spartak associations and blocs were represented. The current situation around the PSA was examined in detail and a unified position was developed on everything that was happening.
I have been instructed to state it:
The current president of the VOB, Alexander Shprygin, bears full responsibility for the current situation and, as having failed to cope with his duties, must immediately leave his post.
The Central Council, as the main governing body of the PSA, is also responsible for everything that happens and must resign in its entirety.
In the near future, a reporting and election conference of the VOB is to be held.
In view of the fact that Ivan Katanaev, as a member of the Central Council of the VOB, is involved in this conflict, Ilya Novikov will represent the position of the Spartak fan movement until the situation is resolved.
Ilya Novikov, this is Ilya Ninja from Boars, this pseudonym was invented for him right at the training camp. It was an official statement, but unofficially we agreed that I would prepare a report on the money, I would report on the collection and all questions would be closed. That evening, it was just a huge blow for me. I took it just as a stab in the back from my own movement. Let me remind you that all this happened exactly on the eve of the announced conference! The next morning there was this VOB conference. I haven't slept all night. I just lay there in some kind of prostration, stayed up until 6 in the morning, went to the shower, got dressed and went to the hotel in Belgrade, where our conference was held. Not only was I leading it, I had to give out another million interviews, sign a bunch of papers and everything else. I held the conference purely on the machine. Kamancha at that time was sitting right in front of the hotel in the IlPatio restaurant on Smolenka and nervously caught any news from there. We held a conference, but it didn't matter anymore. Fighting the Kamanchas, we did not think at all that a third force might appear, which would enter into a fight both with us and with him. And such a force, quite unexpectedly, appeared at the very last moment, when the Spartak Alliance decided to take the VOB for itself. After only six months, having gotten a lot of it and realizing that VOB is just an abbreviation, but in reality these are living people who made this organization successful and that nothing works without us - they will abandon this business and betray VOB completely anathema. But this will happen only in the summer, but for now it is February. Having got mad and somewhat calmed down, I began to act out the situation back. Moreover, everyone expressed their support for me - like, come on, let's report back and play everything back. At that meeting, it is worth saying that the absolute majority simply kept silent. Nobody poured against the Alliance, and with my hysteria I also did not give a reason to vote for myself. The only one who said words in my support was the Kosoy from Union, the whole ultra was silent, it is understandable with such a composition of participants, the Alliance was sharply against me, Union, Boxers and the School kept silent, the Professor barked, but he always barks and no one pays for it attention. That's how they made that decision. But a week later, everyone once again expressed their support to me and said - let's get ready for the next training camp. And then a new blow - Rabik's horses are being washed down! He was my ally, and those who are in the subject are well aware that he could influence some topics in meat too. And here the whole horse movement, which he lived as well as I did Spartak, gives him anathema. A video was leaked to the network where he gets into someone's car and, like, leaks an internal topic to the alleged cops. I can't help but tell you how this video came about. The fact is that Rabik had one, but a very strong gag - he was on all Interpol lists and he was not allowed to travel abroad. And knowing his connections with hooligans in Europe, knowing his desire to stir up topics in Europe and generally skate for CSKA in Europe - you can imagine how much this question worried him. Yes, he could not sleep well, trying by any means to resolve this issue and disappear from these lists. And so Roma Kolyuchiy suggested that he, a few months before our revolution, solve the issue using his connections, which by that time Roman were really serious. In the car where Rabik was recorded, he was put by Kolyuchy and Max, a fool, got hooked and got this video as a souvenir. There were no options, and even his Yaroslavka, whom he brought to the European top and into which he invested everything he had then, even they did not support him. The game is played. Both me and Rabik in VOBa sawed down their own movements in literally one week. And Kamancha did not interfere with the new representatives of our movements. They agreed with him, but I was still in the game. Having lost the official support of his own movement, Kamancha launched his bulls-bandits on me, who tried to "talk" to me by catching me near my house. Like any bull-bandits, they did it rather clumsy and ingenuous, so they never came to anything. I quickly prepared a report on all the finances of Phratria for almost the last half-year, sat and waited for the next gathering. You understand where my mood and general state of mind were all this time. And so, the gathering was appointed three weeks later, after the events described - on February 22, 2010. All the same Hardcore, all the same composition. I arrived at half past seven, as usual, half an hour before the gathering. Usually everyone pulled up at this time, ordered a pint of beer and at 8, without delay, the collection began. And there is no one in Hardcore, my high spirits immediately evaporated, I ordered a pint of beer and waited. Twenty minutes before…. at fifteen to eight - I started dialing - no one is available. Exactly at eight, I realized that I had been drained. All phones are turned off - all are inaccessible, which means that the collection is taking place, but in a different place. You know, the next couple of hours were one of the most difficult in my life - this oppressive feeling of utter disappointment. A feeling of betrayal that just tears you apart and you can't do anything. I don't care about my enemies, but my friends ?! I spoke with you on the phone this afternoon and we discussed today's gathering! I was betrayed even by those whom I sincerely considered my friends and this understanding simply destroyed all living things in me. In two hours I could not drink even one mug of beer - nothing came up, there was a lump in my throat and there was complete devastation. I never expected this. This situation took me by surprise and I was completely unprepared for such a turn. At about 10 pm I left Hardcore and walked across half of Moscow towards the house. I just wanted to go wherever they looked without thinking about anything. The first call came to me at the beginning of twelve in the night - Poodle called. Sorry, he says, the Alliance, literally a few hours before the gathering, moved the meeting place from Hardcore to Small Pub, they told me not to be at the meeting under any circumstances, like we were discussing VOB affairs, and they would discuss me later. I hung up silently. [...]
On the morning of June 14, the French special services detained a bus with a group of Russian citizens belonging to the All-Russian Public Movement All-Russian Association of Fans - Russia Forward, or VOB for short. Prior to that, the largest international sporting event attracted the attention of the press and the public not so much with its sporting achievements as with reports of police chronicles, in places resembling reports from a theater of war. The main "heroes" of the news were Russian football fans. Today the leader of these "fans" is a certain Alexander Shprygin with the speed of a machine gun scribbles from the police station desperate posts on Twitter, indignant at the actions of the French security forces, who "out of bounds" detained peaceful Russian fans of the ball game.
However, before you start to sympathize with the victim of arbitrariness, it is worth getting to know what the All-Russian Public Movement All-Russian Association of Fans - Russia Forward is, and who its permanent leader is.
The society learned about the aggressively-minded "near football" in the first half of the 90s. Russian fans copying the behavior of their English “colleagues” united in “firms” and fought, and football for many was more a reason for a fight than a sports hobby. All-Russian fame for "near football" came after "Manezhka" - a mass pogrom that took place in 2002 on Manezhnaya Square during the broadcast of the match Russia - Japan. Then 47 people were injured, one died in the hospital. It is worth noting here that Manezhka became the convenient occasion thanks to which the Russian State Duma was able to toughen the punishment for extremism. Around the same period, publications began to appear in the press about successful and mutually beneficial cooperation between the authorities and fan "firms". In the opinion, the key role in this was played by the current Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation and former colleague of Vladimir Putin in the St. Petersburg City Hall, Vitaly Mutko.
"Gladiators" Roma Prickly and Vasya the Killer "
The cooperation consisted in the following: the authorities used fans as fighters, which could be set against representatives of the opposition. In turn, the "fans" received funding and protection, as well as a condescending attitude towards criminal activity on a fan base (which, according to various sources, included racketeering, raider seizures and protection of the drug business). Therefore, by the end of the first half of the 2000s, the Nashi movement, patronized by Vladislav Surkov, had its own fanatics, Gallant Steeds and Gladiators, controlled, well prepared and “sharpened” for street fighting. However, their activity faded over time. A different fate awaited another structure, created around the same years, called VOB (All-Russian Association of Fans). It turned out to be the most successful of all thanks to the fact that it was initiated directly by the then head of the Russian Football Union (RFU) Vitaly Mutko. It is characteristic that from the very beginning the VOB was called “Mutko's personal army”.
However, everything is in order:
Also characteristic is the case of an attack on activists near the Tagansky District Court, in which representatives of another pro-Kremlin movement, Mestnye, also took part, which also used fan "firms" for forceful actions against the opposition. Roman Popkov, a participant in these events, writes:
We fought back, handed over all these comrades to the police. An obvious act of aggression, we are victims, the defending side, everything is recorded by surveillance cameras at the court. They come out in a few hours, and in a month we are all arrested. The head of the Lyubertsy cell of the "Local" Leonid Simunin- a participant in a violent provocation against the opposition, he also emerges as a person collaborating with the presidential administration in the case of the "Combat organization of Russian nationalists" and does not even really try to hide his closeness to the Kremlin. Alexey Mitryushin, who was one of the leaders of the Gallant Steeds group and participated in the attacks, now poses as one of the Moscow region officials (Mitryushin is the chairman of the Council of Deputies of the urban settlement of Vidnoye. - Ed. Note) in front of the cameras of news agencies and feels comfortable.
Leonid Simunin "DNR" summer 2014
It is also interesting that the aforementioned Leonid Simunin, according to Novaya Gazeta, was the curator of the nationalist organization Russkiy Obraz and terrorists from the so-called. BORN, who is responsible for many murders, the most famous of which are the murders of Anastasia Baburova and Stanislav Markelov. In this regard, no one should be surprised by the fact that in 2014 Leonid Simunin emerged as one of the curators of the so-called militants. "LPR-DPR".
Now let's move on to our hero of the day - Alexander Shprygin, known in narrow circles under the nickname "Kamancha". This is the former leader of the Dynamo fan movement (Moscow), now a member of the RFU Executive Committee, head of the All-Russian Association of Fans. An interesting fact is that Shprygin's affairs went uphill after Vitaly Mutko was elected president of the RFU, who immediately held a meeting with the leaders of the main fan groups, including the already mentioned Gallant Steeds and Gladiators. The then head of the "Dynamo" fan club (Moscow) Shprygin also took part in the meeting.
Shprygin himself talks about his career takeoff as follows:
Vladimir Putin and Shprygin (Comancha)
“When the MOB came into being, we met with RFU President Vitaly Mutko. He immediately gave us the greatest discounts on tickets and the task: to create an all-Russian fan club called "Forward, Russia!" He promised to give the right to vote in the RFU. And then we will make a federal association, with local representations. Now we are out of politics, and closer to the elections we will change this position. The condition for cooperation is as follows: our representatives must be on the lists of parties at the checkpoints. So that laws are not passed without us. "
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In the case of organizing riots at the European Championships, new facts and evidence are emerging. And first of all, they say that the head of the VOBA Alexander Shprygin, who among football fans is called Kamanchi, did everything possible to ensure that the most radical representatives went to the first match of the Russian national team at Euro 2016 in a charter paid by the RFU fan movement.
The departure of Russian fans to the Euro was generally the main news of the first days of the championship. Footage of the smashed streets of Marseille and the bloody faces of British opponents filled the front pages of the Western press. The story of the dispatch of the plane with the fans of the Russian national team from Moscow looks like a detective story. WITH Shprygin presented the list of departures literally the day before the flight from Sheremetyevo was sent, which did not allow carrying out verification measures and isolating the so-called radicals who flew to France exclusively to wave their fists.
There were a lot of people who wanted to get into the Vobovo charter, ”one of the fans of Zenit St. Petersburg told Life. - There was no clarity on the flight for a long time. This was explained to us by the fact that VOB and the Ministry of Sports could not find an economical flight option and money to rent an airplane. It seemed that no one was ready to spend a lot on fans. As a result, VOBu was still assigned an airplane, and the allocation of seats was entrusted to the heads of fan clubs. They took on the charter according to the following principle: mainly leaders and authoritative representatives of fan groups got there, it was extremely difficult for ordinary fans to fly to France.
As a result, an impressive team of football hooligans went to Marseille on a charter. There were a lot of Spartak fans (a club that officially left the VOB several years ago), many representatives of Lokomotiv, several people from the Moscow clubs Torpedo and Dynamo. Some of the seats went to representatives of regional fan movements. However, for most of the Wobowski charter, the Euro ended already in Marseille.
From France, the plane flew almost empty. Many who arrived on it were afraid, for obvious reasons, to return to their homeland on the same flight, so as not to be detained at the Marseille airport. After the fight at the port, fans left France in scattered groups across neighboring countries. Many had problems with departure: those who arrived in a free charter did not expect to urgently buy tickets to Russia, the price of which increased several times during the European Championship.
It is possible to understand those who did not dare to board the free plane again. As a result of those events, members of the central council of the VOBA Aleksey Yerunov, Sergei Gorbachev and Nikolai Morozov, who arrived in France on a charter, were sentenced to prison terms and still remain in the Marseilles prison. 22 more fans from that charter, including Shprygin himself, b have been expelled from France. True, after a couple of days, the head of the VOBA still returned to France. But not to help out their comrades who remained in captivity, but to the final game of the Russian national team against the Wales national team. Continuing to this day to adhere to the position thatVOB was not the organizer and customer of the fights with the English fans and was interested in the peaceful support of the national team.
In order to understand why Shprygin took the "radicals" on the plane, one should plunge a little into the history of the Russian fan movement in general and the creation of VOBA in particular. Despite his public stance, the country's main football fan has long ceased to enjoy the support of regular fans. There is an opinion among fans that Shprygin's activities were originally aimed not at uniting, but at splitting the fan movement and radicalizing the fan environment, which together caused the image damage to the Russian Federation as the host of the upcoming 2018 World Cup.
The split in the VOB was ripe back in2010, when a real revolution took place in the central council of the organization, as a result of which the representatives of "Spartak" and CSKA, authoritative in the fan world, left the organization. Later, after them, the demarche was staged by representatives of the capital “Dynamo”. As a result, today only representatives of Lokomotiv, Torpedo, Tom, Samara Wings of the Soviets and Rubin are listed in the central executive committee of the organization.
Another confirmation of the lack of unity in VOBa was the conference of the organization, which took place in January 2016 in St. Petersburg. Only 45 out of 90 delegates came to the city on the Neva. And only those who supported Shprygin came. Currently, fans are openly sabotaging all VOB events. For example, in July in Voronezh, under the auspices of the VOB, the football tournament "Holy Russia" was planned. But representatives of 12 regions of the country officially refused to participate in the tournament, which was eventually canceled.
Let's go back to the year 2010. In order to retain power over all fans of Russia in his hands, Shprygin began to actively flirt with the leaders of football hooligans, organizing free trips to Europe under the auspices of the RFU and VOB. Directly, the split arose due to the fact that in 2010 Shprygin's dubious cases regarding the sale of tickets for the matches of the Russian national team became public. They say that at that time Shprygin sold part of the tickets allocated for free and gained a significant amount, which is expressed in a figure with six zeros. All this provoked statements by fans of Spartak, CSKA, Dynamo and many regional branches to withdraw from the VOBa.
Where is the money, Kamancha?
But back to the events at Euro 2016. The actions of the head of the VOBa left active fans without a championship, and the national team itself without support. The facts of abuse of power in the distribution of funds allocated by the RFU to VOB for the organization of the performance became public knowledge. So, according to the members of the VOBa, the RFU allocated 5.5 million rubles to the organization before the start of the European Championship.
It was assumed that this money will be used to make banners and other paraphernalia that will be used in all matches of the Russian national team. In reality, football Europe saw the action from VOB only at the Russia-England group round match, when at the very beginning of the game a huge Russian flag was stretched out on the sector behind the goal.
As for the support of the team, here we have completely failed the Euro, - said in an interview with Life one of the active fans who attended all three games of Russia in France. - We looked decent only in the match against the British. In Lille and Toulouse, the national team, in fact, was left without support, both visual and noise. No performances, in the stands there were only "Kuzmichi" with their families. In Lille, even Slovaks beat us in terms of support, let alone the fans of Wales, who were remembered throughout Europe for their bright support.
Personally, I saw the performance of the Russian national team, but I don’t presume to say how much money was spent on its production, ”said to Life an authoritative representative of the Dynamo fan movement, former VOB executive director Sergei Drozdov. - If we are talking about 5.5 million rubles, then perhaps Alexander Shprygin sewed a banner from a golden thread.
Shprygin's entourage also believes that in reality only a small part of the money went to the destination. Fixed assets ended up in the pockets of the head of the VOB and several of his friends.
Fans are sure that Shprygin has enriched himself in the Euro not only by saving on the performance. The head of the VOBa also made good money on tickets. Thus, 940 tickets were allocated for each match of the VOB group stage. Almost all of them were sold by Shprygin (his trusted people) not at par, but with a 20% margin. Moreover, the tickets that were intended for Russian fans were in fact sold to everyone. This is how the English fans ended up at the Russia-England match in the sector where only Russians were supposed to sit. They got there on tickets sold by VOB. All this resulted in brawls during the match and at the end of it.
A rather strange situation has developed with tickets for Euros, - one of the fans who visited France told Life. - Applications for tickets were submitted by all clubs centrally, all through the same VOB. Thus, the Russian side had to win a large number of packages for three Russian matches. On average, they expected to receive 10-15 packages on hand. But in the end we received 4-5 packages (three tickets in one package) per person. The biggest excitement was, of course, around the match with England. It was already impossible to get tickets two weeks before the game. Therefore, it was surprising when in Marseille itself there was an abundance of free tickets on sale on the streets.
But Shprygin's ticket program operated not only for the national team matches. Dynamo fans are sure that, having built a speculative chain in the club, he regularly makes a profit from the home matches of the blue and white. The process involves the club's fan relations staff, who have many opportunities to drain so-called free tickets to speculators.
The process consists of several stages. Dynamo has a program of attracting viewers, to which hundreds of tickets are written off. For example, an educational institution makes an official request to a club to provide seats for students at a match. The management approves it without any problems, and after that, through the box office, the tickets fall into the hands of the fan relations specialists. From this moment, only they are responsible for their subsequent implementation. Some part of the tickets, of course, reaches the desired consumer, but the other part simply disappears and pops up at the stadium in the hands of hucksters an hour and a half before the start of the match. Fans assure that Shprygin is trying to control the work of this scheme personally, regularly appearing at Dynamo's home matches in Khimki. By the way, he was also present at the last match between Dynamo and Baltika.
In the 2016/17 season, the activity of speculators for Dynamo matches has increased dramatically. Due to the fact that the team dropped out of the Premier League in the FNL, the number of ticket offices at the home arena in Khimki has almost halved. In addition, because of traffic jams on Leningradka, on the eve of matches, half an hour before the start of the game, a huge queue lined up at the box office. In this case, it is really easier to buy a ticket from speculators.
The path to power
In the light of the above circumstances, it is worth recalling how Alexander Shprygin appeared in the football environment in general and headed one of the most massive organizations of football fans in Russia.
From 1996 to 2000, one of the leaders of Dynamo's leading informal fan association, Blue White Dynamite, he established close contact with the club's management. Even then, at the expense of the team's budget, he organized visits to away matches. At the same time, the monthly earnings of the organizer himself, according to sources in the club, reached 500 thousand rubles. In 2007, Alexander decided to go further and initiated the idea of creating a VOBA. She was supported at that time by the President of the RFU Vitaly Mutko, but he did not see Shprygin himself at the head of the organization. But the then and current president of the RFPL Sergey Pryadkin and the former commercial director of the RFU Makarenko spoke in favor of the latter. As a result, in the same year, at the May founding conference, Shprygin was elected president of the VOB. Having come to power, he personally became involved in organizing ticket programs for the matches of the Russian national team at international football tournaments (EURO 2012, EURO 2016, World Cup 2014). According to available information, Shprygin's profit from the sale of tickets for these three tournaments alone is measured with six zeros in foreign currency. Sources in VOBa said that only at the Russia-England match in 2008, a narrow circle of people in the leadership of VOBa pocketed from 1 to 2 million dollars. The general funding of the VOBa was carried out by the RFU, while annually Shprygin's organization received up to 50 million rubles a year. The organization allocated 500 thousand rubles a month for renting an office in Tovarishche lane alone.
But it seems that Shprygin's long-term financial scheme will not last long. The Marseilles pogroms perpetrated by the Kamanches with the money of the RFU forced the country's football leadership to take radical measures. At the last meeting of the executive committee, Vitaly Mutko announced that he was closing the VOB, and a new organization would be created in its place.
VOB let us down. We hoped that the fans would go to support the team, and not to stir up riots. Mr. Shprygin showed disrespect for the entire RFU and for all of us, - summed up Mutko.