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12 • Touchline • Issue 14
ew sports in the world are as divisive or as
politically charged as football. Football can unite
a country. But when Anzhi Makhachkala owner
and president says he is investing in the club to
bring troubled Dagestan together, one can’t help but raise an
eyebrow.
The club’s general manager German
Chistyakov is on message when he
states, “Football can change the
entire appearance of Dagestan. It
changes people’s views and shows
them that life will change further.”
But is this the real motivation
of mysterious billionaire Suleiman
Kerimov,whose £100 million pound
investment in the club relates to
only a tiny fraction of his total
wealth?
In the modern area of megawealth,
luxury yachts and hot girlfriends
no longer represent a measure of
who has the bigger bank balance.
Now, the truly, eye-wateringly rich need to invest in something
infinitely more expensive to show who is the biggest kid in
the play ground. And what could be less profitable and more
unpredictable than a football club?
Since the Abramovich Chelsea purchase, more and more
billionaires have gone out and bought a club. Manchester City
and Paris St Germaine are the two stand out cases, but clubs
such as Queens Park Rangers have also found their funds
coming less from turnstiles and season tickets and more from
the deep, deep pockets of
oil barons. The whole thing
is becoming a monstrous
version of Championship
Manager.
In the absurd world of
modern day football, with its
players whose wallets are as
bloated as their egos, where
referees are threatened on a
daily basis, and where more
newspaper column inches
are given to spats between
managers than wars between
countries, Anzhi Makhachkala
has to take the caviar for most
absurd club in the world.
The players live and train in a plush outer suburb of Moscow,
only visiting Dagestan on match days. It is unclear whether this
inconvenience is a result of the danger of living in Dagestan,
with its violence and escalating ethnic tensions, or the players’
love of soft living. It is reported that marquee signing and most
Anzhi
Makhachkala
A Force for Good or an Oligarch’s Plaything?
F
BY TIMOTHY MOTTRam
Roberto Carlos captaining Anzhi
© Amarhgil