Roman Babayev: one of the best managers of Russian football

Roman Y. Babayev is the General Director of the CSKA professional football club (Moscow).

Dossier

Roman Babayev (pictured below) was born on February 13, 1978 in Chelyabinsk, the USSR. Russian citizen. Education - Higher (Moscow State University named after Lomonosov).

Expert in the field of jurisprudence, professional sports, management. He is single. Career in the structure of the club CSKA - legal adviser, head of the legal department, since March 2007 - the general director of the club. Chevalier of the Order of the Badge of Honor (2006).

The way to CSKA

To date, Roman Babaev, whose biography defined him as a lawyer, is one of the best young managers of Russian football. And then, in 1999, the fourth-year student of Moscow State University had the opportunity to work in the eminent football club of CSKA as a legal adviser. The end of the 1990s was a time of troubles that affected the football industry of the team, financed by all kinds of clothing markets. It was a dead-end road with a lack of the slightest prospect for the development of the club's infrastructure. Roman Babaev decided not to have any more business with this office and to leave quickly.

But the year 2001 has come. The new shareholders, led by Evgeny Giner, came to the team, who tried to do everything possible and impossible to ensure the legal order in football. And in those days there was a situation when there was a legislative vacuum (the absence of any norms determining the status of professional sports), and the staff of most organizations did not even have such a unit as a lawyer. With the arrival of Giner, it became clear that he and his team are a union of people with big ambitions, capable of bringing CSKA's team to a qualitatively new level of development. And Roman Babayev stayed.

From the first day he and the president of the club began to realize this goal.

The main thing was to correctly build the power vertical in the club, and also to select professional people for key positions in the team: commercial, executive and financial director, director of information policy of the club, head of the selection department. Babayev himself headed the legal management for 6 years. And only in 2007, by decision of the Board of shareholders, he was appointed to the post of general director of the club. Thanks to the leadership's professionalism, an efficient and efficient system was built without political and clan intrigues.

Achievements of CSKA (2001-2015)

In 2001, a new management of the club and new sponsors, represented by the company AVO-Capital, the British firm Blue Castle Enterprises Limited and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, came to the CSKA team, which lived a miserable existence. This was the beginning of the revival of the legendary club, which later became the leader of Russian football.

From 2001 to 2015, the team of CSKA won 5 times in the Russian championship, 5 times won silver and 2 times bronze medals, 6 times became the owner of the Super Cup, 2 times the quarterfinalist of the Champions League. In 2005, the club won its first European Cup trophy - the UEFA Cup. Naturally, these victories are the result of joint efforts of the coaching staff and the president of the team. To a large extent, the success of the club was also extended by the general director of CSKA, Roman Babaev.

Secrets of success

The secret of success in any enterprise (and especially in football), as you know, is the attitude.

All clubs that operate on state subsidies are often doomed. In these matters the president of the team Giner and the general director Babayev turned out to be visionaries. This was clearly seen in the example of such clubs of the Russian Premier League as "Saturn" and "Anji". Existence on budgetary money is a way to nowhere, a waste of people's money. Russian (and all post-Soviet) football can not be a business in its pure form, since the decision of financial issues is not put before the leaders of the teams. Only sports tasks are defined.

Therefore, such clubs only master budgetary funds. To private financing, the relationship is different. This is a process of daily monitoring and accounting of cash. Therefore, Giner and Babayev defined a strategy that has been in effect for more than 10 years: the bet should be made on unwound, young, little-known, but talented football players. According to Roman Babaev, the invitation of such players is always a risk. Here it is necessary to take into account the player's mentality, and his character, his marital status, his perspective, his ambitions.

Here is just a small list of young players who gained fame, thanks to a performance in the CSKA team during the reign of Giner and Babaev:

• Sergei Semak, Andrei Solomatin - participants in the 2002 World Cup;
• Igor Akinfeev, Rolan Gusev, Ivica Olic - participants of the 2004 European Championships;
• Milos Krasic is a participant of the 2004 Olympics;
• Chidi Odia is a member of the African Nations Cup (2006);
• Wagner Love is a member of the America's Cup (2007);
• Seydou Doumbia, Keisuke Honda - participants of the World Cup, held in 2010;
• Alan Dzagoev, Pontus Wernbloom, Tomas Necid - participants of the European Championship in 2012 ;
• Ahmed Moussa is a participant in the 2014 World Cup.

Sponsors for Babaev

The existence and success of the club is currently impossible without a sponsor.

This was well understood by Eugene Giner and Roman Babaev. The first sponsor of the club was the company Conti.

Then there was Sibneft, which invested almost 55 million dollars in the team. Currently, the sponsor of the club is the company "Russian networks". The amount of the contract is 130 million dollars (4 billion rubles).

About biography and nationality

It is difficult to imagine a successful football team that does not have its own modern stadium. This was clear to Eugene Giner and Roman Babaev.

In 2007, the construction of an elite football stadium that meets all the requirements of UEFA began. In the allotted territory, the construction of a children's and youth sports school, a business center, a hotel, a museum of the CSKA club is planned.

And who is this Roman Babaev? His nationality is not exactly known.

Some say that he is an Armenian, others - that he is a Jew, just like Giner. In fact, not taking into account the nationality, let's say that Roman Babayev is a man who helped one middle club of the Russian championship become the 40th team in the UEFA ranking with an annual budget of $ 90 million.