Two-time Olympic champion, Honored Master of Sports Alexander Kozhevnikov spoke about the monstrous corruption in children’s hockey, “fixed” matches, poor refereeing, especially for the online publication Kompromat Group, and sports journalist Alexey Matveev spoke with him.
They don’t hire good boys
– For example, the meager salaries of children’s coaches have already set people on edge, – says Alexander Viktorovich. – We need to decide a long time ago. There is still no normal, viable system of relations. They collect money from children and parents. Rich parents pay money for a “guaranteed” place on their child’s team. We are talking about children’s and youth teams, where they must train high-quality personnel for big hockey.
The guy is mediocre, or not very talented. But a bribe was paid for his place in the lineup, that is, a bribe to the coach. And it is almost impossible for talent to break through in an unhealthy atmosphere. His poor parents cannot “pay” for their son’s participation in the game, so for the most part he sits on the bench. That’s it, consider him lost to hockey.
– But can’t a talented boy go to another youth sports school and try his luck there?
– Do you think it will be better? No. Will face the same thing. A disgusting phenomenon. Our hockey is already suffering in its infancy, at the children’s level. And where do real “stars” come from? It turns out, out of nowhere. Hopelessness, yes.
At one time he worked as an adviser to the chairman of Moskomsport, and within the framework of this department he headed the physical culture and sports society “Moscow Hockey”. He oversaw the work of eleven metropolitan youth sports schools and got deeply involved in problematic issues. And I saw manifestations of simply all-consuming corruption. I saw, felt, and encountered disgusting phenomena. So I know about the problems firsthand.
– How does this happen? Here is a rich parent paying a certain amount to a cunning coach for his son’s place in the lineup. Have you tried to do something to eradicate corruption? They couldn’t just observe and state…
– Imagine, bribery coaches were caught red-handed, and bribery parents were caught too. They caught a dishonest hockey “mentor” of young people. The parents themselves, they are peddlers of dirt, do not want to talk about this topic. They continue to “feed” the trainers with money. “Don’t expect us in court, we won’t confirm anything,” the boys’ “educators” avoided problems in every possible way.
It turns out to be a vicious circle, no one needs anything. There is no need to talk about the cleanliness of the ranks. It’s terrible, the children also know about the state of affairs in every detail. They even boast among themselves: “My dad gave Ivan Sergeyech so much. I’m playing, and you’re sitting in the reserves, you lazy bastard.” Of course, not all parents are vicious, but the problem, egregious in its scale, has not gone away. And, apparently, it won’t go away in the coming years.
Don’t bribe takers face prison?
– This means that, as you said, it never came to trial. Have you contacted the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB to bring fraudsters and bribe-takers to justice? Did you find understanding and an appropriate reaction from law enforcement officers?
– They even opened cases. But serious, in-depth investigations did not come. None of the criminals went to jail. From the headquarters, things went down to the district level, and that was where it all ended. “Due to insufficient evidence,” a common formulation, right?
Some coaches who took bribes from parents were fired for such things. Then they safely moved from the youth sports school to private hockey schools, and continued, as if nothing had happened, to “train” young personnel. We were engaged in sports-related activities, as before. Sometimes they proudly beat themselves in the chest: they say, they raised a cool guy. Although these are boys, it’s clear to me, as a professional, that we would have played without them.
I’ll say more: people in uniform from law enforcement agencies, whose children play hockey, are well aware of the unhealthy situation in the popular game. Do you think they have done anything to start fighting the negativity? The question is rhetorical.
When I tried to eradicate corruption, they literally slapped me on the wrist. More mud was thrown from all sides. Why will I continue to climb and swear? I already had a fight with everyone. And I won’t advise you on how to fight, what to do. There is the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, and the Russian Hockey Federation (RHF). There, officials receive money for their work, and not little. Let them think about how to overcome evil. And now I live the quiet life of a pensioner.
He left Moskomsport himself. It is unbearable, sickening to work in a suffocating atmosphere of corruption and non-resistance to it. Some of my friends, apparently too honest, decent, principled, were kicked out of work. One of my friends chose to switch to working on environmental issues…
No one needs us with our principles. Moreover: almost all of our “star” generation, who were still capable of serving their favorite sport, were stupidly “cleaned out”. So that, probably, any hockey crooks will not get in the way. You have touched upon the acute, one might say, “sick” topic of corruption in hockey. You also have a common term attached to you – “enemy of the people.” They really don’t like, let’s say, “mud diggers” who turn the inside out of the sport.
Is the era of “negotiations” over?
– They have been “fastened in” for a long time. That’s what I wanted to ask. At the end of February, the preliminary part of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) championship ends. The race to finish in the top eight in both conferences is tight. Are “fixed” matches possible here? After all, there are clubs that have lost their chances of getting into the coveted cohort of elite teams. They can start “trading” tournament points, giving away matches for money, for example.
– Objectively, no. Recently, my dear Spartak played in Moscow with Avtomobilist. The “red-whites” desperately need points to end up in the top eight at the end of the regular season. Meanwhile, Yekaterinburg defeated the Muscovites – 7:4, although they did not really need the points. What kind of “agreement” are we talking about? Or Sochi, who haven’t won many matches. But, the fans know, they lose by a maximum of one or two goals in their fights. And the other day they defeated the powerful Metallurg. So the Sochi club, seemingly a known outsider of the championship, would also not be suspected of deliberately losing matches.
During Soviet times? Spartak and I definitely didn’t play “strange” matches in the eighties. I only remember that in one of the championships we did not want to see Dynamo in the top three. And they gave up points voluntarily at the finish of the championship. For altruistic reasons. That was our internal attitude, such a desire. No “left” money was asked from anyone. Well, they played and played.
In the nineties, “negotiations” were often played. Then many teams went to foreign training camps, mainly to one of the Scandinavian countries. The club bosses met and discussed, among other things, hockey-related issues.
In general, we agreed before the start of the season. Everyone knew in advance who, for example, would be relegated from the major league. And none of the parties dared to break the unspoken “agreement”. Much revolved and was built on these essentially disgusting things. And no one tried to fight the negativity. I don’t remember any conscientious specialists in those days.
Current level of refereeing? To put it mildly, not tall. For example, different judges interpret the same violations differently. The impression is that they are trying to please this or that coach or player, so as not to offend them. It smacks of obvious opportunism. Hockey itself and its many fans are losing out from this. I don’t think that the actions of referees during matches have anything to do with bias, corruption, no. It’s just the lack of professionalism of many of them.
But the main problem that we talked about at the beginning is the unresolved issues of children’s and youth hockey. If we don’t start solving them, domestic hockey will not develop. This means that we won’t see any beautiful games or success.
