"The decision on Gusev will depend on the results in the Cup, the RPL and the quality of the game"

This season, Dynamo football has undergone drastic changes in leadership positions. In the summer, Valery Karpin became the head coach of the team, but in November he resigned amid disastrous results — 10th place in the Russian championship. He was replaced by Rolan Gusev. He played four games as an acting coach, and in December he was confirmed in his position until the end of the season. In October, Chairman of the Board of Directors Dmitry Gafin, a key figure at Dynamo over the past six years, left the club. He was replaced by Alexander Ivlev, former chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). About Dynamo's ambitions in the Cup and the Championship, the rational reasons that the club has not been able to win a trophy for a long time, and the politicization of sports, in an interview with Alexander Ivlev to Izvestia.

"I've had a love for Dynamo since childhood"

— When and how did you start rooting for Dynamo?

— I attended the Dynamo Moscow match for the first time in 1974 with my father, then he took me to the game with Torpedo. Since then, I've been going to football all the time. But in fact, the pain started much earlier. My father was a member of the Dynamo society, and when I was a very young boy, when I was four or five years old, I came to the stadium where he played with his colleagues in matches in a Dynamo uniform, in a T-shirt with the letter "D". And she's been stuck in my head since those days.

So since childhood, I have been trying to follow the famous Dynamo chant "We believe in only one team, we always root for it!".

Anyway, over the past 50 years, I've supported her through both successful times and failures. Let's say that during the season when the team was relegated to the FNL, I attended almost all the home matches that were held in Khimki at that time. In general, my love for Dynamo has been with me since childhood and has not gone away since then.

— It is clear that during this time Dynamo has changed a lot of coaches, managers, owners and management systems, but have you found an explanation for yourself why the club has not been able to win a trophy for more than 30 years, and this year the period without a championship is likely to reach the 50-year mark?

— I am a business person and I look at things very pragmatically. Many times there was a combination of certain factors that, unfortunately, did not allow us to take the trophy. Remember the relatively recent final of the 2022 Russian Cup in Luzhniki, when we lost to Spartak (1:2). It seemed like there was a real opportunity to take the trophy. But we didn't score a penalty in the end, we didn't equalize, and we didn't get a penalty shootout that we could have won.

Then 2024 and the last round of the championship with Krasnodar (0:1), where we were literally on the verge of gold, but something didn't work out. Although the team showed quite high-quality football at that time, it was quite a championship, and the trophy would have been well deserved.

— You mentioned the last episodes in the club's life, when it was already approaching its cherished goal, but before that there were decades of total timelessness, and even with money and a good squad, there was not even a fight for medals and trophies.

— Let's just say that I'm not a big fan of the version about the so-called "Sevidova curse", that it allegedly haunts Dynamo, and we need to do something, relatively speaking, walk around the stadium three times to remove it. I wouldn't focus on that.

— Then what are the rational reasons?

— The club has gone through different stages of its development. There have been ups and downs. There were objective and subjective factors that influenced the lack of trophies. The owners changed, there were different periods in the history of the country, which also influenced Dynamo — the club went through difficult times in the late 1980s, when the Soviet Union was falling apart, then there were the 1990s and 2000s and a lot of chaos.

Fortunately, we can see that the club has been transforming since 2010. I think we have already reached the stage where we have built a clear management structure for the club and created the necessary infrastructure. Of course, we would like — and such work is underway — to improve the working conditions of our children's football academy, because it is the key to the success of our club. Look at the composition of the pre-season matches with Chinese clubs at the BetBoom Dynamo Global Challenge tournament, how many graduates of the academy are playing and showing their skills, and we are pleased with this.

We need to work together and prepare the team to have a winning spirit that will allow our guys to believe in their strength. And to create good conditions for them so that they can realize themselves, so that the coaching staff can really prepare them physically and mentally to the maximum, set them up for victory, so that they really show the football that fans dream of. And this football will definitely be victorious for Dynamo. When this happens, then the titles will come.

We really want to win the Russian Cup this year, and that's the goal we're pursuing. I am sure that we will also fight for the championship in the coming seasons.

"The team is working energetically"

— You called 2010 the year when the club began to transform. Then VTB became the owner of Dynamo. Do you associate improvements with this?

— Sponsorship really plays a big role. It is very important when there is an organization such as VTB that provides support and does real useful things for the club. Look at the success story of the best clubs in the world — there is always a very good sponsor behind someone. And we see that there is a synergy between the sponsor and the club. I am very pleased that the VTB management supports our club, Andrey Kostin (President and Chairman of the VTB Management Board. — Izvestia) He is often present at matches.

Time is passing, the club is changing, we are slowly moving up. Unfortunately, there are mistakes from time to time. I won't name which ones, but by the time I was elected chairman of the Board of directors in the current championship, Dynamo was already in tenth place. Now we see changes in the team, we see that the team is working energetically, is determined to win, and the young people are ready to play.

— Why is the contract with Rolan Gusev signed only until the end of this season?

— The Sports Block provided recommendations that were considered at the board of directors level. There was a discussion, and we listened to the ideas that the candidates for head coaches offered us. As a result, we decided to entrust the team to Rolan Gusev — so far for this period, during which, in our opinion, he is able to solve the tasks set.

— Is winning the Russian Cup next spring a prerequisite for continuing the work of Gusev and his staff?

— This is a combination of factors. The fight to win the Cup, the quality of the game, the results in the RPL, the condition of the players — all this together will be taken into account and will influence the decision on the head coach at the end of the season.

"Dynamo and I will still have a chance for RPL gold"

Blue and white soccer player Luis Chavez — about the missed championship in 2024, his injury and his favorite places in Mexico and Russia

"I do not plan to nominate my candidacy to the RFU Executive Committee"

— Since February 2021, the person who held the position of chairman of the Dynamo Board of Directors has always been a member of the RFU Executive Committee. This was the case first with Yuri Solovyov, then with Dmitry Gafin. Are you planning to continue this tradition?

— I do not plan to nominate my candidacy for this position. Other Dynamo candidates? Let's leave this out of the scope of our conversation for now.

— In December 2020, you rather quietly left the post of chairman of the RUSADA Supervisory Board. What was the reason for that?

— There are regulatory issues related to the frequency of work in this position. I've been working on it for four years. Therefore, there were re-elections, and new people joined the team. We have been setting up the work of RUSADA, interacting with WADA. A lot has been done, but four years is a long time to transfer the post to another person.

— You received part of your education at the University of Chicago Business School and worked for Ernst & Young for a long time. We collaborated with other international organizations, whose managers received education in the same place as officials of FIFA, the IOC and other sports organizations. Do you understand their thinking, why they began to ban Russian sports so actively, first on doping charges, and from February 2022 for openly political reasons?

— I'll say it simply and concretely: this is geopolitics. Which, unfortunately, has recently shown that all the ideals of sports that have been promoted for many decades have sunk into oblivion. There are "more equal" among equals, when one can do something and the other can not, someone can be banned, and someone can not.

Geopolitics has shown that the phrase "Oh, sport, you are the world" does not correspond to reality. We see the selectivity of the system that is being implemented in the functioning of international sports organizations. Everything is politicized.

— Are there any ways to fix it now? Do you see that Russian sports organizations are properly using all available levers to solve the problem?

— From my point of view, a lot is being done by the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation, the Russian Olympic Committee, and Russian sports federations. A dialogue is underway with their colleagues from international structures. Often, on the sidelines, you hear from international functionaries: "This is really not entirely fair, but what can we do, pressure is being put on us."

— Have you also heard this from your friends?

— Yes, I heard. There is pressure and a maximum negative impact on the presence of Russian athletes in the international arena.