Russia will open the World Cup with a match against Saudi Arabia on Thursday.GETTY IMAGES
Russia "ensured an inauspicious and unsought record: the lowest-ranked team to try to win a World Cup on home soil," according to Max Seddon of the FINANCIAL TIMES. As the national side prepares to open the tournament on Thursday against Saudi Arabia, "worries over how it will perform are symptomatic of wider problems in Russian football." The country's moment in the football spotlight "comes at a nadir for its domestic game, with teams struggling to attract foreign stars, unearth new talent or even stay solvent." Critics say that the 683B rubles ($10.9B) spent on the World Cup "belies long-term neglect of the sport." Local commentator Kirill Dementiev said that today's players "grew up when football was in ruins. There was no system in place and no way to develop them. It's a lost generation. They had nobody to learn from." A decade ago, the situation for the sport in Russia was "as healthy as it had been since the Soviet heyday." That period is now seen as the "beginning of a decline," with a rule introduced by the Russian Premier League -- stopping clubs from fielding more than six foreign players -- "seen as one reason for stagnation." The limit was "meant to promote domestic talent." But it gave players with Russian passports the chance to earn "far more than they would earn in more competitive leagues in Europe." Money worries are also "hampering development." All but five of Russia's professional clubs are owned by provincial governments or state-run firms that "slashed spending during a recent recession." Dementiev said, "When there was money, people spent it on the wrong things -- expensive foreigners, huge contracts, taking helicopters to training. It was not very forward-thinking." Russia's football officials "hope the stadiums built for the World Cup will help to revive the domestic game." One change the World Cup already brought to Russian domestic games is a "severe crackdown on its notorious hooligan contingent" following "violent clashes" with England fans in Marseille at Euro 2016. Russia disbanded the football supporters' association, banned its leader, Alexander Shprygin, from attending matches and arrested dozens of "ultras" on charges of "extremism" (FT, 6/11).
