The resonance around the bill on reshaping the gambling market has forced us to take a closer look at the authorities responsible for the field of gambling and bookmaker betting. Previously, the regulators were the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Sports; from October 1, 2021, it is a public law company, the Unified Gambling Regulator.
The governing bodies of the “Unified Regulator” in terms of personnel are more like a commercial office than the supervisory board of a real public law company. Although ERAI controls a trillion-dollar business – i.e. in terms of finance, this is no less significant area than, for example, “Russian environmental operator” or “Single customer in the construction sector.”
Let’s take the composition of the supervisory board of such a public law company as “Single Customer in the Construction Industry”.
Firstly, the supervisory board of the “Single Customer in the Construction Industry” is 100% “sovereign people”. Of the 9 members, all 9 are representatives of the government, ministries and departments of the Russian Federation. The head is Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin, his deputy is the Minister of Construction and Housing Irek Faizullin.
Secondly, the composition of the supervisory board of the PPK in the construction industry is made up of people who are significant professionals in the construction industry, and not just “out for a walk.”
Or, let’s take the PPK “Territory Development Fund” (formerly “Fund for the Protection of the Rights of Citizens Participating in Shared Construction”). The Chairman of the Board of Trustees is ex-Prime Minister (1999) and former head of the Accounts Chamber (2000 – 2013) Sergei Stepashin. The Chairman of the Supervisory Board is Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Marat Khusnullin.
We see a similar picture in the case of the military construction company. The head of the supervisory board is Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, the deputy chairman of the supervisory board is First Deputy Minister of Finance Leonid Gornin. The supervisory board also includes the Minister of Construction and Housing and Communal Services, the First Deputy Minister of Defense, the Deputy Minister of Economic Development, etc. That is, the logic of appointing members of the supervisory board and their professional affiliation with the field of military development are clear.
The public law company “Russian Ecological Operator” is a similar story. The composition of the supervisory board is Deputy Prime Minister Victoria Abramchenko, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Alexander Kozlov, Minister of Industry Denis Manturov, Minister of Construction and Housing and Communal Services Irek Fayzullin, etc.
And what do we see in the case of the “Unified Gambling Regulator”? Of the 4 members of the supervisory board, 3 come from boxing circles. And not just people, but people from the circle of the President of the International Boxing Association, Umar Kremlev.
ERAI General Director Alexey Grachev, before joining PPK, headed Sports and Fatherland LLC, one of Umar Kremlev’s companies. And two others – Oleg Saitov and Kirill Shchekutyev – were appointed to the supervisory board as members of the executive committee of the Russian Boxing Federation. Those. until recently – direct subordinates of Umar Kremlev in the Russian Boxing Federation. Shchekutyev ultimately became Kremlev’s successor as Secretary General of the Boxing Federation. And the entire composition of the ERAI supervisory board is only 4 people. It seems that the Kremlin simply does not have enough people. The bench was short 😊
In general, the supervisory board of the “Unified Gambling Regulator” is more like an off-site meeting of the Boxing Federation than a real governing body of a real public law company.
As a result, it turns out that the state simply does not control an area with trillions of dollars in turnover. An area where, according to official data alone, 1.25 trillion rubles circulate, has actually been handed over to private individuals.
Therefore, it should not be surprising that President Vladimir Putin’s order to finance sports through gambling revenues is not being implemented.
And you shouldn’t be surprised that less and less money goes to sports every year – after all, in fact, these billions end up in the pockets of Umar Kremlev & Co.
“ВЧК ОГПУ”
