MOSCOW, January 20. /TASS/. The Russian Football Union received $350,000 from the Federation of International Football Associations (FIFA) as an extra bonus for the national team’s participation in the World Cup last year, an unnamed source told TASS on Tuesday.
FIFA paid an additional financial bonus to all national teams, which qualified and performed at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
RFU President Nikolay Tolstykh said earlier on Tuesday that two days ago the Russian football’s governing body received financial allocations from FIFA and would channel them for partial repayment of the wage arrears to Italian head coach of the Russian national football team Fabio Capello.
“We have received financial sources from the FIFA two days ago,” Tolstykh said, adding that “in the near future we will channel them to pay off our debt to Capello. The funds will not be sufficient enough to cover the whole debt, but the sum is not that considerable.”
According to results of an inspection carried out in November by the Federal Agency for Labor and Employment (Rostrud) the debt stood at 181.5 million rubles, which ought to be repaid within a month, i.e. by December 19.
As the December 19 deadline passed, Rostrud announced that it decided to grant an appeal from the country’s governing football body and extended the date for RFU’s required wage arrears payment for another month, i.e. until January 19, 2015. Rostrud, however, imposed financial fines of 40,000 and 4,000 rubles on the RFU and its President Tolstykh respectively for the failure to repay salaries on time.
The Italian manager was not paid again as the deadline expired on Monday and Rostrud ordered another sudden inspection of the RFU. In case Capello is not paid, the RFU faces a financial penalty and Tolstykh may be suspended from his post for the period between six months and two years.
The RFU experiences financial difficulties and as of December its budget deficit totaled 500 million rubles ($8.4 million). Following the session of the RFU’s Executive Committee last month, Tolstykh said that a special anti-crisis commission was intended to be set up to tackle the financial difficulties of the organization.
The Russian national squad experienced a string of setbacks over the past decade, failing to qualify for the 2006 World Cup in Germany and 2010 championship in South Africa to the great dismay of Russian football fans.
Things changed, however, when Italian phenomenon Capello took over the team as the head coach and managed to help the Russian national squad to qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.
The team, however, failed to clear the first stage of the much-anticipated global tournament, putting their coach in the center of stern criticism and raising serious concerns in the country about the team’s performance in the next World Cup, which would be hosted by Russia in 2018.
However, Russia did not severe the contract with Capello after the Russian team’s performance at the World Cup in Brazil and the Italian manager also decided to stay with the Russian squad as the head coach until the year of 2018 as stipulated by the contract terms.