PhD, Associate Professor A.A. Opletin¹
PhD, Associate Professor A.A. Urasova¹
N.Y. Zubarev^2
1Branch of St. Petersburg Institute of Foreign Economic Relations, Economics and Law in Perm, Perm
²Perm State National Research University, Perm

Keywords: professional sports, sport facility, underage and teenage sports, professional sport clubs.

Background. Governmental control policies and practices may be pivotal for the process control situations in different sectors of social life including the sports sector, with the governmental control mechanisms growing both with the growing expenditures for the sports sector and with the expanding regulation of different social relationships geared to exercise the constitutional rights of people for physical culture and sports services. It was in November 2016 that the national Parliament approved the Federal Law “On the changes and amendments to the Federal Law “On Physical Culture and Sports in the Russian Federation” intended to regulate the elite and professional sports” [1], and the Federal Law “On the changes and amendments to the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedural Code of the Russian Federation intended to step up the liability for violation of anti-doping rules” followed by the Federation Council’s approval [2]. The modern Russian sport system is basically composed of the following three sectors [4]: mass sports; professional sports; and elite sports. We consider herein the professional sports sector due to a variety of reasons. Professional sports are presently ranked among the most popular and expensive sport sectors of the Russian sport system, and this is the main reason why they have been lately subject to an increasingly high interest of the national researchers.

Problems of the national sport sector have been studied by many national prominent researchers. V.K. Bal'sevich, for instance, considered many problems of the national sport science in his studies

 [5]; and L.I. Lubysheva [9, 10] analysed some issues of the sport culture building in the modern social situation [11, 13]. A number of comprehensive study reports have analysed the challenges faced by the national sport industry with a special attention to the sport sector financing and taxation systems: we would mention the studies by L.V. Aristova (1990), P.Y. Voronin (1996), S.I. Guskov (1995), L.V. Zhestyannikov (1999), V.V. Kuzin (1993), M.Y. Kutepov (1993), V.A. Lednev (2002), A.V. Orlov (2004), I.I. Pereverzin (1998), V.P. Shikhov (1998) et al. No less interesting is the foreign experience in these fields of research. Sport sector development problems in some countries have been considered in the study reports by V.A. Chingene (1993); with specific sport sector problems addressed and analysed by A.V. Stone and R.S. Warren (1999) et al. It should be noted, however, that some of the sport sector development and management problems are still underexplored as yet. This was the reason for us to offer our overview and analysis of the ways to ensure the national professional sport sector development avenues for its sustainable and independent growth in the Russian Federation.

Objective of the study was to offer a modern government control model for the professional sport sector of the Russian Federation and explore the most promising avenues for the model perfection.

Study results and discussion. As things now stand in the Russian Federation, the national professional sport system is regulated by the legal and regulatory framework dominated by the Federal Law #329 “On Physical Culture and Sports in the Russian Federation” [1, 2, 3], regulations of the national Championships and Russian Cups in different sport disciplines [4] and the relevant regional government provisions.

The national government largely controls the professional sports at present by a variety of the relevant economical instruments including subsidies, lending and taxation benefits etc. By varying the tax rates applicable to one or another sporting or sub-sporting activity/ service (including bookmaking, lotteries, gaming business etc.), the government may spur or hamper growth of some sport businesses and services effectively regulating the business revenues and flows of human resources to and from the businesses. Moreover, the government may provide its financial support to the national teams in the training and competitive periods. The inflow of finance to the professional sports is now dominated by the categorical assignments from the territorial, provincial and municipal government budgets including those provided under the relevant subsidising contracts. In the Perm Territory, for instance, the financial support is regulated by the regional law “On the Professional Team Sports Co-financing Arrangements” [12] commonly referred to as the so-called “50/50 system”. As generally provided by such contracts, the financial incomes are distributed to finance the relevant cost elements including the underage and teenage sports, professional clubs etc. At this juncture, special efforts need to be taken to secure due coverage of the relevant sport events by the regional and municipal mass media organisations – for the reason that no finance may be assigned for this purposes under the existing regulatory provisions. The existing Sport Federations should be also wider engaged in the professional sports design and management activities albeit they are still largely in the same situation as the sport clubs being mostly underfinanced by the government.

In addition to the financial provisions, the proposed professional sports control model makes provisions for the relevant material supply for and human resource inflow to the sector. Material resource of a club or team means the sport facilities/ assets owned by the relevant federal/ regional/ municipal governments or legal entities including physical education/ sport institutions and private individuals. No less important is the human resource management, with special attention to the underage and teenage would-be athletes and other sporting individuals, supporters and enthusiasts viewed as a clientele for the products and services offered by the professional sport sector. On the whole, the existing professional sport design and control model of the Russian Federation may be outlined as follows: see Figure 1.

Figure 1. Professional sport design and government control model of the Russian Federation

The existing sector control model may be further described by a variety of factors of influence that need to be thoroughly analysed with the relevant classified problems being highlighted by the analysis. The proposed professional sport sector control model implies a dominating role of the government control in virtually every social relationship domain covered by the model, with the particularly strict governmental control of the taxation and financing systems and processes.

Leading analysts highlight the problem of poor management of the existing sport assets by the regional owners. It may be pertinent to mention that sport facilities are traditionally and mostly developed for account of the local government budgets and, when commissioned, handed over to the local sport clubs. As long as the asset holders are not allowed to let on lease their sport facilities, their financial management may never be sound enough. The situation is further aggravated by the existing control system that is still in need of an efficient compliance control to ensure every regulatory provision being fulfilled including, for instance, the match-fixing prevention ones.

Furthermore, experts are concerned about the shortage of sport management personnel in the executive government bodies of every level, with the problem being due, among other things, to the poor motivations of and initiative from the young sport sector specialists and more experienced sport experts that pay little if any attention to the human resource related problems. The situation is further aggravated by multiple problems including the following: outflow of highly-skilled athletes and players to the top-ranking clubs and leagues; problem of the elite teams and clubs being increasingly staffed by top-skilled foreign contractors (“legionaries”); shortage of modern sport assets in the regional sport establishments, with the existing ones being often obsolete, outdated, short in hosting capacity and otherwise incompliant with the modern regulations and standards. Furthermore, the regional sport establishments are often in need of due selection and recruitment systems to promote prospects from the local CYSS (Children’s and Youth Sport Schools) to professional sport clubs; and one should admit the present lack of effective sport recruitment mechanisms being applied in the country in fact. In addition, the national sport system is in need of a fair retirement system for athletes upon completion of their sport careers since the national professional sport system offers no mechanisms to ensure more or less efficient integration of the retired athletes into labour markets and social life.

Conclusion. As things now stand, the professional sport control and management system in Russia has come to a stagnation phase, and no efficient national management system has been developed as yet albeit there is a practical international experience of such systems being efficiently run by the developed nations and proved quite successful and profitable. The national professional sports are more often than not dependent on the government budgetary finance totally determined in its turn by the existing government system. It should be confessed that in the present situation the national professional sport system is cost-inefficient despite being popular enough, providing jobs for athletes, coaches and government offices and enjoying a broad public support from the local communities and multiple supporters sensitive to and welcoming every success and progress of their professional sport clubs. 

References

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2. Guskov S.I. Perekhod k rynochnoy ekonomike i razvitie fizicheskoy kultury i sporta [Transition to market economy and development of physical culture and sports]. Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury, 1991, no. 8, pp. 111-115.
3. Zubarev N.Y. K voprosu o zakonodatelnom vnedrenii sistemy otsenki effektivnosti byudzhetnykh raskhodov [Concerning legislative implementation of rating system of efficiency of budget expenditures]. Mater. ochnoy i zaochnoy nauchno-prakticheskoy konferentsii "Aktualnye problemy gumanitarnykh, yuridicheskikh i ekonomicheskikh nauk v sovremennoy Rossii" [Proc. full-time and correspondence res.-pract. conf. "Actual problems of humanities, legal and economic sciences in modern Russia"]. 2010, part 1, pp. 101-104.
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Corresponding author: annaalexandrowna@mail.ru

Abstract

Presently national sports are viewed as a powerful tool to advance patriotism in the country and an excellent field for efficient government control to secure due return on the governmental investments in form of competitive accomplishments, public support and enthusiasm of national athletes. At this juncture the Russian government builds up an integrated professional sport system in the country albeit the initiative is largely hampered by the still underdeveloped legal and regulatory framework and the high dependence of the system on the government budgets. These problems are commonly acknowledged as barriers for the sustainable and independent professional sport system building initiatives in the Russian Federation. Our study was designed to outline a government control model for the professional sport system and its resource development avenues. We applied a structure-and-functionality analysis to identify the key actors and their responsibilities and to model their interactions within the proposed government control model for professional sports. The model specifies the key control instruments of the professional sport sector. Our analysis of the proposed model made it possible to highlight the key problems in the government control of the sector that need to be solved to help the national professional sport sector cope with the crisis it is presently facing.