How do Vladimir Putin, the de-facto president & Roman Abramovich fit into it?
I’m a bit uncertain about Putin because he is thoroughly undemocratic and there is an enormous amount of corruption, but he has reined in the oligarchs and he has taken heart from the old Soviet policy of using sport in the Olympic Games to demonstrate superiority over decadent Western nations. Putin feels there is a need for an injection of patriotism so he has forced the oligarchs to invest in the major sports like basketball (CSKA are European Champions), ice hockey (Russia are world champions) and especially in football and tennis. He has forced Abramovich to pay almost all the wages of Guus Hiddink, the national team manager by implicitly threatening to take his Sibneft (Siberian Oil) assets from him if he does not. There are plenty of examples of Russians who did not play ball with Putin who ended up poisoned or died in mysterious helicopter crashes. Are we right to assume there is a sinister hand behind recent Russian soccer success? The Russian press reported there were 5,000 h
