There are interesting moments.

Since March, Russian football fans have had to get used to the new realities of national sports: without a national team at the World Cup in Qatar, without games in the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League. These restrictions also apply to next season – Uefa extended the suspension of the club and the Russian national teams from competitions under his auspices for next season.

A logical question arose: how to fill the gaps in the calendar? Various options were offered by the media, but the scenario with the organization of a new commercial tournament – the Cup RPL.

The head of the working group talks about the high degree of readiness of the project.

The tournament format was officially developed at the end of May, on the 19th at the general assembly of clubs RPL It was decided to create a working group to organize the Russian League Cup. Subsequently, the progress of the work was mainly followed by the head of the group and the general manager of Dynamo Pavel Pivovarov:

There is great progress in all directions, the roadmap is being implemented. A model for the distribution of funds, draft regulations, a calendar and a format have been prepared. A brand platform has been developed and active work on the visual identity of the tournament and trophy is underway.

At the end of June, it was reported that the organizers were having trouble finding the funds for the tournament, which could lead them to think about postponing the project. However, the Cup needs a title sponsor, a broadcaster, all of which will allow clubs to cover the additional costs associated with participating and to make money from the competition’s matches.

Pivovarov, answering a question about the economic component, said that the working group had commercial proposals worth several billion rubles. This means that the financial aspect has been resolved.

The official’s words suggested a conclusion about the high degree of readiness of the Cup project RPL – there are companies ready to invest in the tournament, there are models of the format. Everything is due to the fact that the details of the organization of the tournament will be discussed at a meeting of the Premier League clubs. It took place on 6 July.

3 teams against the Cup RPLthree others have questions.

During the meeting of the Premier League clubs, the issuance of the Cup RPL was not put to the vote – while the participants discussed the draft of the tournament. The idea of ​​holding the competition was supported by 13 out of 16 teams from the elite division, but even those who agreed had questions about the project.

According to former Russian national press officer Ilya Kazakov, the comments were made by representatives of Wings of the Soviet and Spartak. “Sport-Express” reports that the leadership of “Zenith” supported the Cup RPL as such, but opposed to the immediate organization of the tournament next season: the St. Petersburg team wants details in terms of schedule and logistics.

Khimki, Orenburg and Fakel expressed themselves against possession of the Cup. Roman Teryushkov, member of the supervisory board of the Moscow region club, noted:

We did not support the decision to create the League Cup, because at this stage there are no guaranteed sources of funding. Broadcasting rights are also an unresolved issue. At this stage, we did not support this decision precisely for these reasons: this tournament was not elaborated: neither by the position of the broadcasters, nor by the position of the sponsors.

The president of “Orenburg” Vasily Eremyakin, in turn, said: – it is not clear how to solve the emerging problems.

Just over a week to go until the start of the season: it is more logical to postpone the issue of project implementation.

However, most of the clubs supported the idea of ​​the Cup RPLand the working group has until July 15 – this deadline has been set by the Russian Football Association (RFS) to finalize the tournament project. The first match of the new Premier League season will take place on the same day. And in such realities, the decision will be read as a crude and ill-planned reform that is undertaken on the go.

Although this can also be justified – no one imagined that in the spring Russian clubs would be left without European cups and thus lose the right to participate in international tournaments for next season. There is a sense that the Russian League Cup project will eventually be accepted due to lack of better options in compiling the calendar. The expansion was abandoned as early as May, the scenario with the reform of the Cup of Russia remains. At the same time, the new tournament is a solution to the problem of a small number of clubs that have lost matches in European competitions. The rest of the teams do not have a large selection of players – they participate in the Cup RPL will incur additional costs. It makes sense to only agree to participate if there is a benefit to it. National coach Nikolai Pisarev mentioned “Match TV” about logistics problems:

If you do not take the financial component, but the sports one, at least 10 cup matches are added to 30 league games RPL plus the Russian Cup, and we get 45 games in one season. It would seem that, yes, this is not bad in the place of European competitions, but 5-6 clubs have experience in European competitions, 9-10 clubs have never had a squad for such matches. And here we add the logistical story, we have 4 clubs – without airports.

The lack of specificity in the question of the contenders for the title sponsor role of the new tournament continues to scare. So far the names of the sponsoring companies have just surfaced in the media, but there are insiders on the League Cup budget – according to the latest data, will be at least 2.5 billion rubles. Whether these figures are real or taken from the air, we won’t know yet. But if there are no guarantees in the details of the Cup, the best option would be to postpone the new tournament and keep the teams’ money from the bottom of the table. RPL.