I’m not much of a football (soccer) fan in general, but just watched an interesting breakdown of how FC Krasnodar (the only fully privately owned football club in Russia) just won the Premier League — beating out all the state-funded, teat-suckling teams propped up by taxpayer rubles.
For anyone interested, it has English subs
In a nutshell, almost all Russian football teams are state-sponsored or subsidized, as usual, they are good at sucking up money and not much else, unlike in the general West where clubs have to be commercially viable (even a small one like Real Bedford).
And a bit like Real Bedford, FC Krasnodar started small (but unlike Peter McCormack, it was founded by a supermarket mogul in 2008 and has no bitcoin connection). Now over the years, it's gone from the very bottom, right to the top.
Usually with Russian football teams, the moment there’s a change in politics and the state money goes, the team goes bust with it.
In contrast, the founder of FC Krasnodar built a long-term strategy around financial discipline, long-term talent development, and infrastructure investment. The club built one of the country’s most modern stadiums, Ozon Arena, with private capital and attracted record attendance, averaging over 27,000 fans per game.
They also built a youth academy to grow talent with elite athletic training and academics, including English language instruction and more. Nobody else is doing this in Russia.
FC Krasnodar is also killing it on merch and other deals, while the other state-backed clubs continue to operate in the red, shielded from market consequences by their political connections.
Now, usually in Russia, when a business gets juicy enough, there is a hostile takeover by someone with better political connections etc, that happens all the time, so I don’t know if that will happen here. Private business builds something awesome, and the state muscles in and ruins it (like Yandex).
Still, it is nice to see a business person with a vision and a plan drive forward and create something special that doesn't need state subsidies