A possible way for the FAI/LOI
Okay, I said I'd get this down and while I know I'm summarising one part of it too much, this is the main body of a 3 hour debate in Nizhny Novgorod for solidifying football in the Privolshky Region (especially their top senior league - Privolshky League aka Div. 3 - Privolshky Region).
Anyone on twitter can pick up some of the extracts (with links to newspaper reports) Ulyanovsk Gorod, fcvu and a couple of others, and I'll gladly pm the message I got from the Ulyanovsk rep, Sergei Kuzmin, to whomever wants - guess it won't be anyone in the FAI then :cool:
1. Failure of clubs to complete league fixtures result in the loss of valuable experience for players, revenue for clubs and prestige for Russia's most successful AFL (Div. 3) region (I'd dispute this but they are strong).
2. Failure of clubs to implement coaching strategies from previous years guidance (2010 season I believe).
3. Failure to actively progress players u-19 to higher levels and professional contracts.
Resolutions:
a) Central authority to coaching not dependent on club structure, for teams up to AFL in Priv. region.
b) All coaches to hold appropriate coaching certificates before 1 November 2012 or clubs will be fined and prevented from taking part in Spring section.
c) Facility standards to comply with agreed recommendation by 1 November 2012 or clubs will be fined and prevented from taking part in Spring section.
d) All child welfare guidelines to be obeyed.
e) Financial investigation office of Ministry of Internal Affairs to received monthly reports from 1 September 2012 for ALL clubs in the Priv. region. Failure to submit will result in incremental fines, resulting in (upon 3rd infraction) removal of club licence - as per RFS (Russian FA) codex.
f) Failure of clubs to pay players for more than 3 months in a 12 months period (non-consecutive) will result in licence being removed - as per RFS codex.
g) Each club competing in AFL and above will have appointed an independent attester from the Priv. Region football Association who will verify financial and legal activities for clubs - clubs to pay 50% of wages (at a rough guess the salary is about 20,000rbs a month - the person is a bookeeper with some legal training).
h) All clubs to field teams down to 1st school level (I think this is under-11).
i) All clubs to maintain and develop girl's football section.
j) All clubs to pay a surety bond/insurance commensurate to the budget expected for the upcoming season.
From what I've been told (and what we'll only know this coming week at the follow up review and submit meeting in Ulyanovsk on Wednesday) is that everyone is buying into it as the AFL lost about 4 clubs during the season, maybe more. I remember the biggest scandal was Volga Nizhny Novgorod's reserves (who operate almost autonomously) pulling out of the league when the team refused to take the field due to unpaid expenses. The 1st team were unpaid for 7 months and the reserves about the same. In the region you have Volga NN, Rubin Kazan, Mordovia Saransk and Krylya Sov. Samara all in the Premier and their reps, reluctantly, agreed to the points above. The RFS have to ratify them, though if they come in other regions and republics will follow. 7 of the 10 parts (either republics or regions) all approved them first locally, then brought them to the AGM this week. The 3 holdouts (according to what I was told) were Udmurtia, Samara and Penza.
How much can the FAI learn from this, I don't know. Do they have the bottle to take on the whole range of interests? Do they want to commit to placing an expert at each club to make sure finances and regulations are in order? It would be a great thing to create 20 odd jobs, or actually it would probably be only 6 full-timers (for the LOI) due to the size of Ireland. And they are very harsh about kicking clubs out. KAMAZ pulled out this year after they were found to have insufficient funds to commit to stay in the 1st Division. They are, so I've been told, relatively debt free and could have gone into the red chasing promotion which keeps evading them. Instead they'll play at the AFL level and rebuild.
