At the end of the summer of 2022, something happened in Russian football that can be confidently called one of the main events of the year in domestic sports. The era of Leonid Fedun in Spartak has officially ended. He has owned the red and white since 2004. And on August 22, it was announced that the controlling stake in the club and the Otkritie Bank Arena stadium were transferred to Lukoil, whose vice-president Fedun remained for about 30 years.
During the 18 years of Leonid Arnoldovich’s rule, Spartak acquired a stadium, won one Russian championship, one Russian Cup and one Super Cup, took the national championship silver six times and bronze once. Against the background of spending and comparisons with the regular championship in the 1990s, when Oleg Romantsev was the president and head coach of Spartak, this is considered a failure. And the constant changes of managers and coaches, endless scandals formed negative impressions of Fedun’s activities.
In 2004, he acquired the club from Andrey Chervichenko, who owned Spartak for four years, at the end of the Romantsev era. In an interview with Izvestia, the former president of the club appreciated the period of Fedun and shared his opinion about the future of the red and white.
“If it wasn’t Spartak, Fedun’s result would be perceived as worthy”
– How radically will Spartak change after Fedun’s departure?
– I do not know. BUT how can you radically change a football team, at least at first? There are contracts, there are obligations. A football club is an organization that cannot be changed overnight. It can only be done gradually. But it seems to me that Spartak will now only follow the path of improvement. And it is clear that some European crooks have already been expelled from the club, all contracts with the illiquid assets brought by them have been broken. In my opinion, the positive is already noticeable. And we understand that this was not the decision of Fedun, but of the new team. It’s just that her arrival was not announced until a certain moment, but the process was already underway.
– You say that it is impossible to radically change the football team, but after all, when in 2004 Spartak finally passed from you to Fedun, the club was thoroughly updated in the very first transfer window, changing the head coach, buying more than a dozen newcomers.
“You know, foolishly, you can break anything. That’s what they were doing. Why is the club doing this now? Let’s go back to 2004. So they broke everything, spat three tons of dirt with a known substance into my trail. Did it get better after that? They have won something for so many years? Once won the championship, once the Cup of Russia. But how long did they wait for this after I left? 13 years to win the championship, 18 years to win the Cup. The question is, why make radical changes? To just do? To just show how cool we are? Well, they showed. If you take their interviews of that time, then for 18 years the plan has not been fulfilled even by 20% of what they bubbled and told what they would do in the next three to four years.
– Still, according to the results of 18 years of Fedun in Spartak, what outweighs: the negative from scandals and constant sports failures or the positive from rare titles and the stadium built?
— I think it’s still good. The stadium is a great thing. I believe that it is the Fedun stadium that will be most remembered by the fans. And in general, the material base. I do not know exactly what remains after his departure. Here he sold the stadium together with Spartak to Lukoil. It is not clear whether the club has a place on Shiryaevka, where the youth team trained. But in principle, in terms of material support, everything was fine.. Big step forward. There are both subjective and objective reasons for the failure to achieve great sports results. Still, the dominance of Zenit and the entire St. Petersburg lobby is a significant factor, which made it very difficult to win. Therefore, I would like there to be a little more sporting success, but it’s not bad anyway. If it were not about Spartak, but about any other team, then the titles would be quite enough, not to mention the second or third places in the championship and the finals of the Russian Cup.
– And now they cannot be compared with the times of Oleg Romantsev?
– Yes, everyone is looking at the times of Romantsev, at the nine championships won under him in Russia. If it were not Spartak, then Fedun’s result would be perceived as quite worthy.
“Financially, I didn’t lose at Spartak, but rather gained”
– Do you understand what is the reason for the subjective factors of Spartak’s failures under Fedun? Why was he almost never constant in choosing managers and coaches, changing them regularly?
– It was the biggest problem of Spartak. because Fedun is a person who is absolutely not versed in football. He made arbitrary decisions. And it seemed to him that he knew and understood something about it. Due to the fact that the last word and decision was his, all these problems arose, since in football Leonid Arnoldovich, in my opinion, is incompetent. And, of course, the inability to trust professionals who are well versed in football.
– The latter has always surprised me, since a person risked his money, worked in a big business for many years, it seems that he should have been able to select personnel who would monitor the spending of his funds.
— I think this is a problem of throwing from one group to another. He kept rushing between them, listening to who would sing what to him. And almost never could stop at someone for a long time. As far as I know, he is a suggestible person. If you conveyed some position to him in the morning, then it is not a fact that someone will not come to him at lunchtime and will not turn this position over by the evening. Hence all this throwing between everyone, listening to everyone. As a result, some non-obvious choice based on the phrases that he liked.
– Is it possible to expect that top managers coming from Lukoil, according to rumors, these are Evgeny Khavkin and Alexander Matytsyn, will not behave the same way?
I don’t want to name names as nothing has been officially announced yet. We have to see who is coming. But From the information that I have, everything should be fine. The person who will oversee Spartak is well versed in football, understands all football processes. Everything should be fine.
— Did you cross paths with this person when you were actively working in the oil sector?
Yes, that’s why I’m so confident about it. From communication with this person I know how much he understands and understands. How well he sees football and everything that happens in it.
– How costly is Spartak for the owner? They say that you sold it to Fedun so that you recouped your expenses for the club and even left the project with a profit. Did these 18 years turn into a strong financial disadvantage for Leonid Arnoldovich?
I don’t know and I’m not even interested. I don’t like counting other people’s money. I can say for myself that this is true. And even, maybe not purely from the very sale of the club, but also due to some acquisitions along the way, but I did not lose financially at Spartak and rather acquired it.
– That is, they recaptured both the purchase amount of the club and everything that was invested in it during the four years of ownership?
– I guess, yes.
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