Russian sports companies, on the verge of KO

Russian sports companies, on the verge of KO

Joseph Carlos Carabias

Updated:

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The consequences of the war in Ukraine are devastating on a humanitarian, social and economic level. And one of the variants that strangles the Russian invader are the economic sanctions that, in sport, are already being felt with immediate effect. Vladimir Putin, who has turned sport into an effective tool for foreign influence, is now seeing how the country’s main companies are on the brink of being knocked out on sporting stages. Gazprom, Aeroflot, Uralkali, VTB o Kaspersky they cease to be global companies to be reduced to the inner world that Putin intends.

“Sport is disproportionately important to authoritarian regimes. The inability to participate in competitions will hit Russia hard. Russians are passionate about sports. Hosting big events excites them,” the president of the British Olympic Committee, Hugh Robertson, told AFP.

Gazprom is the first casualty as a symbol of Russian prosperity and connection to the West for vital gas supplies. UEFA has abolished the sponsorship agreement that it had with the gas multinational, one of the eight main sponsors of the Champions League that waved on all football advertising posters in the best competition.

Gazprom was founded in 1989 in the Soviet period and is controlled by the Putin government, although it is managed in the manner of a private company. It has 456,000 employees, according to Forbes magazine, and its annual sales amount to 148,000 million euros, making it one of the top ten companies in the world. Gazprom invests 90 million a year in sports, more specifically in football. As financial support for the Champions League, it contributes more than 40 million, according to the KPMG Football consultancy.

Schalke 04, a historic German club in which Raúl played and which now plays in the German second division, has already crossed out Gazprom’s shirt. The Champions League final, which was to be played in Saint Petersburg in a stadium owned by Gazprom, has been changed to Saint Denis, in Paris.

Manchester United signed in 2019 an agreement of five-year partnership with Aeroflot, the Russian aviation company. Cristiano Ronaldo’s team traveled on their international trips with Aeroflot. The commitment no longer exists. It broke four days ago.

In Formula 1 the implications have been instant. The management of this business eliminated the Russian Grand Prix, scheduled for September 25. The Sochi race was sponsored by the VTB financial group, a bank with operations in China, India, Austria and a large number of former Soviet republics.

The International Automobile Federation (FIA) debates this Wednesday whether to expel from Formula 1 the Russian driver Nikita Mazepin and the sponsor, Uralkali, who brought the American Haas team under his arm. Dimitry Mazepin, a businessman close to Putin with whom he met on January 13, is the largest shareholder of Uralkali, a fertilizer company that introduced his son Nikita to F1. For €25 million, Mazepin became an F1 driver.

Rugged can also be the future of one of Ferrari’s sponsors, Kaspersky, an international company dedicated to computer security with a presence in 195 countries whose headquarters are in Moscow.

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