"We want next year's match attendance to be 10-12 thousand"

The Akron Football Club from Tolyatti is in its second season in the Russian Premier League. According to the results of the last championship, he took the ninth place. This was largely due to the signing of star striker Artyom Dzyuba, who came to the eighth round of the RPL. In the current draw, after six rounds, Zaur Tedeev's team is in 12th place, having pulled away by only one point from the transition zone.

After losing the last game of the championship to CSKA Moscow (1:3), Dzyuba made a resonant statement that it was difficult for 17-18-year-old players to play against such an opponent, and called on the Akron leadership to strengthen the team, asking the question: "Do we want to fly to the FNL?". In an interview with Izvestia, Konstantin Klyushev, general director of the Tolyatti club, commented on the performance of a key player, spoke about work in the transfer market, goals to increase attendance at home matches in Samara and the reasons for the inability to build a stadium in Tolyatti in the coming years, and also explained the collapse of the Vityaz hockey club from Balashikha, where he worked last season. commerce and marketing.

— What is your reaction to Dzyuba's statement about the need to strengthen the team in order to support the head coach and the threat of relegation from the RPL? Has he discussed this with you before?

— Artyom and I have a fairly honest and open dialogue. There is just an emotional assessment, but there is a constructive reality, our reality in which we exist. Dzyuba knows perfectly well where we are and in what conditions we operate. Therefore, of course, we need reinforcement. But we have a list of players who should come to us before the end of the transfer window and strengthen Akron. It's just that we don't have the right to make mistakes with transfers, unlike budget clubs, we use private money and understand all the responsibilities involved. But we don't have a big budget.

— What is he like in the RPL?

— The 14th.

— How would you rate the team's start in the current championship?

— You know, we don't evaluate the team and its short-term actions. We give full assessments after the whole season has passed. Therefore, we will evaluate it based on the results of the entire season.

— Are there any concerns at all about the current results, given that the team is at the bottom of the table, next to the transition zone, although last season, after the arrival of Artem Dzyuba, it confidently climbed into the top ten and avoided relegation from the RPL without any problems?

— During the season, Akron looked good in terms of a place in the standings. But here everything changes from tour to tour. Everything changes very quickly, especially at the start of the championship. Therefore, we will look at the results after the end of the season.

— Not so long ago, you were the founder of the DoubleDouble marketing agency, which last season was engaged in increasing attendance at the Vityaz hockey club. How much can Dzyuba's popularity be used in terms of growing home attendance at Akron?

— We have launched a joint advertising campaign with Artyom. I think we've made a step forward compared to the previous season. Our commercial income is growing, and so are our revenue. We are a private club, and we are looking at these indicators very carefully.

— How many Akron matches in Samara will you be satisfied with in the coming seasons?

— 10-12 thousand viewers is what we are targeting in the short term.

— What do you mean by a short-term perspective?

— Next season.

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Maxim Shnaptsev, football player of Pari Nizhny Novgorod, talks about his appearances in the starting line—up, the new head coach of the team and the disastrous results

— In November last year, in a Forbes article, you reported that your company had increased attendance at Vityaz's home matches in Balashikha in a short time, and commercial revenues had doubled, and this was in a club that was not very popular and successful in sports terms. Why didn't this save Vityaz this summer from withdrawing from KHL competitions and disbanding teams with an office?

— Of course, the scale of the figures in the commercial market that we are talking about here and now is much lower than the money allocated to the club by the company that was the main sponsor of Vityaz. When this sponsor was unable to allocate the appropriate funds, the club was no longer able to rely on its own resources. We do not have teams that beat off the "crutches" at the expense of commercial income.

— If your agency had managed to work longer with Vityaz, how much of its budget could it have recaptured on its own?

— That's a good question. My goal was to achieve a payback of about 30-35% of the budget.

— How much did you manage last season?

— About 15%.

— Will such stories as the departure of Vityaz from professional hockey, the bankruptcy of football Khimki, and the failure of Novorossiysk Chernomorets to join the RPL, contrary to the sporting principle due to the lack of a necessary stadium, be repeated regularly in the coming years?

— It seems to me that we very often face such problems in sports. Not only this season. It's just that such events have happened in very large numbers this year. As it is, we may be in lower leagues every year, but we encounter such phenomena. So this is not surprising. Is there a solution to this problem? In my opinion, it exists.

"What's that?"

— We are working on it (smiles). We won't reveal all the cards.

— Does this decision apply specifically to Akron?

— To all Russian football. But I won't tell you in detail yet — everything has its time.

— Is there any understanding when a place may appear in Tolyatti for the construction of a new Akron home stadium?

— This is not a priority issue. I repeat, we act consistently — this is the most important thing for us. As part of the club's development, we now prioritize the formation of other infrastructure — a training base, an academy, and arenas. All our efforts here and now are focused on these aspects. The issue of the stadium for the home matches of the main team is constantly looming in our focus, but we are well aware that this is definitely not something we are ready to throw our efforts at, including financially.

— What needs to happen so that you can talk more specifically about the stadium?

— Structural changes in the Russian economy. Because we are completely dependent on the business that our shareholder runs.