"Matches have had to be canceled because of air raid alerts."

The Football National League (FNL) has made a number of notable reforms in recent years. The organization, which holds competitions in the first and second leagues of the Russian championship, divided the second league into divisions 2A and 2B. Division 2B returned to the "spring - fall" system. At the same time, stories of clubs being disbanded due to financial problems have been minimized - the difficulties of Alania Vladikavkaz are rather an exception to the rule.

In an interview with Izvestia, Nail Izmailov, the FNL president, analyzed the consequences of these reforms, assessed the seriousness of Alania's problems, expressed his satisfaction with the development of Crimean clubs playing in Division 2B, and also explained the difficulties with the development of professional soccer in Siberia and the Far East, spoke about the problems of teams from frontline regions and revealed the system of prize fund distribution to the participants of the competitions.

- Is there confidence that Alania will finish the season?

- There is no complete certainty, but I still highly estimate the chances that we will not have the team withdrawn during the season. I hope Alania will finish this championship. But the question of its participation in the next season is still open. We will try to help it, but we must take into account that the team is private, financed by one man, who, according to external information from the media, has certain shifts in priorities, so we'll see what happens next.

- Under you there have been no cases when a team of the first or second league did not finish the season, right?

- Yes, but this year is somewhat unusual. As far as I understand, there are problems not only in the first league, but also in the RPL, judging by what we hear about Khimki. The situation is turbulent, but we will try to stabilize it so that our championship retains its integrity.

- 11 years ago, in much more economically stable times in the first league, two teams could fail to finish the season at once. Now this is not even close to happening. How do you avoid such problems?

- Now the situation is also difficult, but the league does a lot to make the clubs feel stable. It tries to help, including financially. There is a prize fund, which we distribute both in the first and second leagues. But this is just the beginning - we have only recently started distributing these sums. Further the league will work to make them much larger. In addition, since the year before last, the second league division 2B we have switched back to the "spring - fall" system, which allows clubs to accurately plan their budgets and play the season without financial problems.

- How do you distribute these sums?

- We have a complex motivational scheme of distributing money from the league for the clubs of the first and second league. There are fixtures that are distributed among all teams. But also a part is distributed among the clubs based on their marketing activity, as well as for playing time on the field of young players. In addition, the distribution of funds is influenced by attendance at home matches, the number of tickets and season tickets sold, the quality of the club's SMM services and so on.

- And how much can a first league club earn in this way?

- I will not name the amount, as it is very different for each club, depending on many factors I mentioned above. For example, a club can take the last place, but at the same time earn good money on their young players, on what gives them playing time. Moreover, such work with young guys allows to earn money not only from the league, but also from the realization of transfer rights for them.

- We know that due to the TV contract for 2022-2026 and agreements with bookmakers, the RPL distributes so much money that the last-place team is guaranteed to receive more than 300 million rubles. And the last team of the first league can earn, for example, 20 million rubles per season?

- A little less.

- According to my observations, in recent years, there have been fewer cases when teams of the second league, who have earned the right to play in the first league on the sporting principle, refuse to go up.

- We reformed the second league last year, which allowed us to divide it into divisions 2A and 2B. Now there are definitely no refusals when moving from 2B to 2A. And 2A teams are preparing for the first league as much as possible.

- So there are no stories when clubs voluntarily refuse to be promoted?

- Not yet, but you see, the economic situation remains quite tense. So I do not rule out that such cases may occur. And I do not see anything shameful in it. If the club, realizing its financial situation, is not ready to move to a higher league, but still wants to preserve its existence, why not? We do everything to minimize it and try to keep the sporting principle, but if the club to continue its functioning considers it necessary to stay at the same level as it is now, even if it has earned promotion on the sporting principle, then we understand it. I will explain this on the example of the second league teams from cities that are in the zones of counter-terrorist operations. Many of them do not play at their stadiums - they play their home matches in other regions. And they have difficulties with funding. What am I supposed to do with them? They are not ready to be promoted in a class where they will have to spend more money. I think it is better to leave them in a lower league, but at the same time help them to maintain their existence and have the prospect of returning to their home regions when the security problems there are solved.

- As far as I understand, we are talking about Belgorod's Salut, Bryansk's Dynamo and Kursk's Avangard?

- Yes. At the same time, we still have many regions that, unfortunately, are being attacked, bombed - somewhere by missiles, somewhere by drones. Because of this, matches are often held without spectators. Sometimes a match is canceled, postponed or paused because of an air raid. In any case, soccer is a mass gathering event, and, accordingly, there should be a higher degree of attention to the conduct of such events. We have had cases in the last two and a half years when we started matches with spectators and then had to stop the games because of an air raid. We had to evacuate the spectators from the stadium, and the teams waited in safe rooms for the end of the air alert and then, after it was canceled, continued the meeting from the minute at which it was stopped. We have quite a few such locations. For example, Crimea and Sevastopol.

- How do you feel about the situation when in order to be allowed to compete in the RPL a club must have a stadium with a capacity of at least 10 thousand spectators in its region? Because of this, for example, "Alania", when they were leaders in the previous seasons, were doomed in advance to be ineligible even for the transition matches.

- I believe that infrastructural requirements are mandatory for all participants of competitions. Obligatory. Otherwise we will get absolutely motley leagues. The RPL is the elite division in Russian soccer. Accordingly, if a team plans to enter this elite division, it must be as ready for it as possible. Not only in terms of places in the first league, but also in terms of infrastructure. If a club is planning to go up, then it means that it should be prepared for it. So, we need to prepare the infrastructure in advance, including the construction or reconstruction of the stadium.

- You mentioned the return of Division 2B of the second league to the "spring - fall" system. How do you assess the effect of this?

- Based on communication with clubs, it is obvious that it has definitely simplified the financing procedure at the moment. Clubs are now not withdrawn from the competition during the season as they were a few years ago. Under the fall to spring system, we were missing a lot of clubs in the winter. Those who follow our soccer in the lower divisions know the reason: clubs form their budgets for the calendar year. And, when the season takes place inside the calendar year, it is easier to plan funding. Therefore, with the transition to "spring - fall" the situation in Division 2B has become more even and stable. The championship itself has become, in my opinion, more interesting. We have a lot of young players playing there - they have a large amount of playing time.

- Shouldn't the 2A division and the first league also be switched to "spring - fall"?

- I don't know yet. We need to talk to the Premier League clubs. We formulate the task for ourselves to make the FNL as a whole and all its tournaments a league of growth. And the first league is a product that is as close to the RPL as possible. In this regard, we can not be apart from the RPL, because that is where the clubs come from the first league. That's why we reduced the number of clubs in the first league a few years ago, in order to move to a one-week cycle between rounds - the same as the RPL teams. We made the infrastructural requirements for League One clubs as similar as possible to those of the RPL. Thanks to this, this season Premier League newcomers Akron and Dinamo (Makhachkala) have never been lost in the elite. They feel comfortable there, among other things, because they were prepared in advance both in terms of sports and infrastructure.

- When the Professional Football League (PFL) held competitions in the second league until 2021, it was often criticized because professional soccer was almost extinct in Siberia and the Far East. What do you see as ways to solve the problem?

- There really aren't many teams there. We have even discussed this issue with the Ministry of Sport of the Russian Federation. And we have a certain development program. We have analyzed the cities with a population of more than 250,000 people. Including the eastern part of our country, where there are no professional clubs at all. And they took the initiative to find support and assistance from the Ministry of Sport in order for these cities and these regions to receive some kind of support. We are discussing infrastructure requirements and trying to work with the Ministry of Sport, both regional and federal, to ensure that the main funds are spent on improving infrastructure facilities: stadiums, bases, academies, training fields and so on. We want to eventually prepare the infrastructure and clubs in the East to participate in professional soccer.

- For many decades, the second league was divided into separate zones based on geographical principle. It is believed that the departure from this hit primarily the eastern teams, which have to spend a lot of money on flights to the European part of Russia.

- On the one hand, it is cheaper and easier for clubs from the East to play only among themselves. But on the other hand, the logistics were often organized in such a way that they still had to fly via Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, or generally via Moscow and St. Petersburg. Unfortunately, small aviation as a class practically does not exist now. Many small airfields, which were actively used during the Soviet era, now do not fulfill those functions. This is a big problem. There are not always railroad and automobile connections. And where there are, teams still have to travel hundreds of kilometers. Therefore, even if we talk about some kind of division of the second league into East and West, this story does not seem relevant to me yet in connection with logistics. We talked to the clubs, they gave us schedules of their teams' movements during the season depending on certain opponents. We looked at how much it was costing their budgets - sometimes it's crazy money.

- In Division 2B in 2025, FC Sevastopol and Rubin Yalta will start their third season. Are you satisfied with the way these two Crimean clubs are developing?

- I am satisfied. They show themselves well both in terms of sports (the same Yalta took second place last season in Division B), and in terms of training. Moreover, there is a good attendance of home matches. When there are no air raids and there is no need to hold matches without spectators, these two clubs show record attendance - their stadiums are consistently attended by 4-4.5 thousand people.