The Russian government has tabled a change in the law aimed at extending its control over many of the country’s sports federations, Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko told R-Sport on Thursday.
The amendment to the law on national sports federations would allow the Sports Ministry to choose the head of any federation that relies on the state for more than 50 percent of its funding.
Given the unclear financing of many sports bodies, it is difficult to tell how many sports would be affected.
Another amendment would bar foreign nationals from running sports federations.
Mutko played down the impact of the measure to choose federation heads.
“This amendment is interesting but I would not say that it is important,” he said.
The various federations have signed up to an agreement with the government that has successfully prevented “scandals”, he said.
“The current format of the law is satisfactory overall. We have an agreement with all the federations, we’ve demarcated the authority with them.”
“Problems have not existed for four years now. Some scandals between the federations, the Olympic Committee and the state, like we had earlier before each Olympic and after each Olympics, don’t exist now.”
If made law, the proposal is not thought likely to affect the Russian Football Union, which is currently leaderless, but funded by corporate sponsors.
