"It's mandatory to get into the KHL playoffs, and then we'll try to make some noise"

This week, the appearance of a new major sponsor of the Lada hockey club (Tolyatti) was announced — JSC Polyplast. According to Vyacheslav Fedorishchev, Governor of the Samara Region, this strategic partnership involves allocating Lada, which plays in the KHL, its farm club CSK VVS from Samara (plays in the VHL), the Ladya youth team (plays in the MHL) and a new sledge hockey team 5 billion rubles over the next five years.

It has already been announced that Alexander Kharlamov, who held a similar post at Torpedo Nizhny Novgorod in the previous six years, will become Lada's CEO. And the sports block will be led by Sergey Gomolyako, the former sports director of Magnitogorsk Metallurg, who won the Gagarin Cup with Magnitogorsk a year ago. In an interview with Izvestia, Homolyako spoke about the candidates for the post of head coach of the Togliatti team, the club's objectives, the desire to keep striker Arkhip Nekolenko in Togliatti, and appreciated the KHL's April decision to raise the salary cap and floor over the next three seasons.

— This spring, the previous Lada management extended the contracts with a number of leading hockey players from the past two seasons, in particular Dmitry Kugryshev and Nikita Mikhailov. Have these decisions been coordinated with you?

— No, we did not agree.

— Are you interested in cooperating with them?

— The guys already have contracts. And these are pretty decent hockey players. So I don't think there will be any problems with them.

— Mikhail Fisenko, with whom you briefly crossed paths at Metallurg, has played an important leadership role at Lada over the past two seasons. Is there a desire to offer him a new contract?

— Let's see what our composition will be. I'm more interested in Nekolenko.

— What is the situation with him?

— We will talk. Everything will depend on the player's requests. It is clear that our budget at Lada is not the largest, but it is quite good. So it all depends on the negotiations — we have an interest in Arkhip.

— When will you decide on a new head coach?

— We have candidates. I think we will form a coaching staff in the near future.

— How many candidates are there for the position of head coach?

— There are many candidates. There are about ten people. All these coaches are not working at the moment.

— It turns out that the rumors about interest in Ilya Vorobyov did not arise out of thin air?

— Vorobyov, Vyacheslav Butsaev, Viktor Kozlov, who has now ended his contract in Ufa, is also a local, a native of Tolyatti. I don't want to mention all the names, but if you look at all the coaches who are currently free from work, you will understand what kind of list we have.

— After the end of the series with Lokomotiv, Viktor Kozlov was offered a contract extension with Salavat Yulaev right in the locker room — the head of Bashkiria, Radiy Khabirov, personally said this.

— It's better for you to talk to Viktor Nikolaevich about his negotiations with Salavat Yulaev. What's the point for me to talk about the relationship between him and Ufa? I'm just saying that we're looking at all the coaches who are currently out of work or without a contract for next season. As soon as one of them gets a contract for the next season with a particular club, he will no longer be on our list.

— Evgeny Koreshkov, who left the SKA coaching staff, was also mentioned in the media as a candidate for the Lada head coaches. Are you considering it too?

- yes.

— Are you planning to strengthen the goalkeeper position?

— Absolutely. Yes, Alexander Trushkov, who played after Vladislav Podyapolsky's winter departure to Dynamo Moscow, is a very good goalkeeper. And Maxim Tretyak, who took to the ice in some matches, also showed a good level. But the goalie line still needs to be strengthened. Let's see if we can break into the foreign market.

— Is Lada's task for the next season?

— The obligatory task for the season is to get to the playoffs. That's understandable. And then we'll try to find a way to make some noise. Sometimes, it succeeds. It was like when I was at Traktor, when the club also had a small budget. We have assembled a good team. And even though I was fired during the season, that team won bronze medals in the playoffs after a certain time - for the first time in a long time. So you can set the minimum standards, but why not make some noise in the playoffs? I hope that our coaching staff and I will create a team that will not be indifferent. And he will fight in every game, for the club, for the city. And then many things are possible.

— Will you personally be involved with the Lada Farm Club, the Samara CSK of the Air Force in the VHL? Do you have any idea who will train him?

— I have ideas, but at the moment I don't want to voice the names. I hope that by the beginning of the pre-season, both the coaching staff and the team will be formed. Will I study on my own? It is clear that I will have assistants who will work closely with the Samara club. But I'm definitely not going to distance myself from this, I'll keep my finger on the pulse, and I'll also be involved in the farm club.

— How did you react to the April decision of the KHL board of directors to raise the salary cap from 900 million to 1 billion rubles for the 2027/28 season, and the floor from 450 million to 600 million rubles?

— The increase has been asking for a long time, since it is necessary to take into account inflation. Back when I was working at Metallurg, I advocated this and even said that right now it is possible to raise the ceiling to 1 billion rubles. As a result, even now the KHL has decided not to raise it from next season (in the 2025/26 season, the ceiling will remain 900 million rubles, in the 2026/27 season it will rise to 950 million, in the 2027/28 season it will rise to 1 billion). — Ed.). But there are also people in the league who know and understand everything. They have made their calculations when it is appropriate to raise the ceiling. And we did it, which is good for our hockey.

— Is it beneficial for Lada that by the 2027/28 season the difference between the ceiling and the floor will be reduced by 50 million rubles?

— I hope that with such a sponsor, which Lada has now acquired, and with the good game that I expect we will show, the budget will also change for the better. Although financial matters should be addressed not to me, but to Alexander Zinurovich (Shamsutdinov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Polyplast. — Ed.).

If we play good hockey, then maybe the sponsors will turn to us and give us more money so that the team can compete for medals. That's what we're here for. We need to build a team to bring Tolyatti back to those moments when Lada won the championship, reached the finals, and in general constantly set the highest goals.