Source: www.rucriminal.info

VChK-OGPU and Rucriminal.info correspondent Alexey Matveyev continues the conversation with the famous master, formerly a brilliant forward for CSKA and the USSR national team Boris Mikhailov.

 

- Let's say a player has lowered his condition, plays worse than a couple of

months ago. Can his salary be reduced accordingly, in order to somehow

spur him on with that invisible, but very effective "whip"?

- No. A player who has already signed a contract with a club does not have his salary reduced.

Previously, in our time, there were three categories for player pay:

highest, middle and junior.

For example, if you play poorly for a month, you are suddenly transferred from the middle pay category

to the lower one - automatically. What could you be expelled from the team for?

For violating the sports regime! Such a common, but quite

specific formulation.

- Well, there was almost an idyll in Soviet hockey, and now, in your opinion, everything is fine too? For example, no crime - "fixed matches", payments from the mafia for the "right" result of this or that match?

- I think I've told you this many times - if you put in another word for

crime , I'll get up and leave. Meet with people from the criminal world, in my opinion,

you should ask them questions like these. They'll tell you everything. Just ask them straight out: did you participate in the "development" of some club? In their

language, in my opinion, that's how it sounds. What does it have to do with me?

In general, I think that just babbling about "fixed" matches is not respecting oneself. I have to have a folder of documents incriminating the dealers,

in order to talk about crime in hockey. So far I have no documentary

 

grounds. And so, shaking the air is just empty talk.

Talk to the team representatives, maybe they will tell you who was given and how much money for the result needed by their team.

- The president of the country also drew attention to the current problems of hockey, in our narrow circle he advised "to stop the rolls". What is this?

 

Coaches worked with the boys who were lagging behind in hockey for an additional fee.

And Putin remarked in a moderately harsh manner: stop this! The state itself

is capable of helping the boys "lagging behind" in skill, it is ready to pay for the work of hockey coaches. We must admit, the president is right...

- What do we need to improve? - Boris Mikhailov ponders. - First,

I think, "fresh blood" is needed in the hockey federation itself. Plus, we must diversify the educational and training process at all costs, otherwise stagnation

is inevitable. We need to look for something new in training. But overall, we have a good school, good students, and many talented guys. But if one of the coaches calms down too much, you have to say goodbye to him once and for all. Hockey does not forgive indifference, unprofessionalism!

- Probably, hockey does not forgive indifference in the sense that we

sometimes overzealously close our eyes to the topic of "unfair" matches,

which are also accompanied by incompetent, sometimes "corrupt" refereeing. Is it possible to restore order here?

- "Fixed" matches? I don't know, I have never encountered them! If I knew,

believe me, I would tell you everything frankly. With you, excuse me, it's like an

"interview under torture."

 

- Despite all the shortcomings of the Soviet system, our hockey remained one of

the strongest in the world, - Boris Mikhailov continues the conversation. - Even during the legendary USSR-Canada series of matches, almost our entire national team was invited to play in Canada and America, to the clubs there. For obvious reasons, we could not afford it. But this is a kind of recognition of the strength of domestic hockey, its masters, my then partners. Well, imagine that one of my brilliant partners would have played "fixed matches" behind our backs in the Soviet championship? Ask this question to one of the surviving veterans of hockey - you will see and feel the reaction. I am a hockey player myself, and in the recent past a coach. And you sometimes talk to me as if I were a representative of the near-sports criminal world. I am much more interested in the score on the scoreboard during the match of my native team, CSKA. What is not right about the actions of the army men? If you analyze the game, there are many questions for our hockey players. In particular, the goalies are letting us down, the defense is not always clear, and the forwards, in my opinion, are not very good either. I am often asked by fans and experts: can the current CSKA win the Gagarin Cup?

If you had asked me this question at the beginning of the season, I would have answered quite definitely: no, CSKA will not win the coveted cup. For the same reasons that I have already mentioned earlier. Why did I think so?

Because some of the masters have become too complacent, believing in their own

infallibility. As a result, they have stopped preparing for the

season properly. In my opinion, some of the CSKA players have become somewhat satiated

with their successes. As a result, failures have come pouring in.

The coaches? They have also become too complacent ahead of time. And, apparently,

they have "calmed down" their charges too...

Source: www.rucriminal.info