Poor Attendance

I think the economic issues are more dire than you suggest for the everyday people in the FSU. Where inflation is large, pensions are $100 a month, 1000 euros is considered a good salary, imported goods are extremely costly, and bank interest rates are 20%, it is difficult to have everyday cash to go to a game when other options are free.

In regards to people with money, perhaps attending sporting events is not the cool thing to do. Going to Fenway Park, or a Lakers game, or the Packers is the THING to do in those areas. Maybe the same cannot be said for soccer in FSU. But maybe that is the question you are getting at.

 

Interesting case example, and perhaps it is a situation with the sport being a lesser part of culture. To give an example not from the FSU of what seems to be a similar situation: I lived in Copenhagen for a summer, and never heard anything about soccer- and the young people I lived with never cared, nor went, and sports in general seemed to be less important than in the US. I asked my Danish roommate once why that is and he said "In the US you have so many sports, and so many good ones, that is is natural to be more into sports."

That is in sharp contrast to the local college football team here. My Mom & Dad go, my sister goes, all of my friends go, my friends of friends go, a ton of girls go who don't follow football, families go together, 10,000 fans from another state come to go. And they all pay $35 a ticket and fill up a 90,000 seat stadium.

 

The people who go to Metalist matches, are not most people with money. Sure a few of them go, but most of them are still the old proletariat, ordinary blue collar workers. Their salaries are nothing, and to be honest, it seems that most of them are spending it on vodka.

I would speculate their a several factors as to why they don't draw a lot. England right now has a strangle hold on the top players, and the top teams exist outside of Russia and Ukraine. All the major sports in the USA, bar soccer, are the top competition for their given sports. They draw the top, most famous talent from all across the world. Russian and Ukrainian football draw mostly native players and third rate foreigners. They sell the top foreigners. So you have that factor, you're not seeing the top players and teams, like in England or America.

The second issue I would bring up, is that despite the appearances in Kiev and Moscow, most ordinary people are not doing that well. The majority of people are still earning $200 odd dollars a month with some supplements from bribery in certain professions. University professors, policemen, bureaucrats etc. That's a far cry from the disposable income of the average middle income families in England and the United States. If my observation of most Metalist fans is correct, then most people who are interested in the games are unable to attend. Even if a ticket to Metalist costs $5, if you are earning $200 a month, that's a huge chunk. Add to that, the best English premier league matches and Champions League are on Megasport and other cable channels. So you can watch the top teams play on television.

Those are two speculative theories that I will put forth just off the top of my head.

 

I'll add in the hooligan factor. England has successfully converted the Premiership into the North American version of sporting events. That is, attracting high class, heavy spenders to games where crowd disturbances are minimal. Families feel safe taking their kids to baseball games in the US and now English football matches. Russia still has the terrace culture that harkens back to the 80s in England. While a lot of football fans take pride in that, it's not exactly the best way to fill up stadiums with non-hardcore fans who don't want to be caught in a riot. The same problem seems to be affecting Italy, watch a Serie A match these days and most of the stadiums are empty. There could be many reasons for this, but I can't think that crowd trouble does not play a part.

 

I think that may be a bit accurate. The reputation plays a big role. I told my friend that I wanted to attend a Zenit match, and she said I was crazy and only go if I wanted to get drunk and be in a fight. Whether its true or not, that is the perception.

 

even if the ticket is five bucks, you can buy 5 bottles of vodka for that much And there is almost no such thing as middle class.

 

I somehow get the sense however, that things being cheap in Russia, disqualifies them from being cool among people who have money. A bar can be cool just by charging higher prices. Maybe games are too cheap for some, and too expensive for others.

 

Of the times that I visited and stayed in YKPAIHA since independence and that is 17 times I found that the games especially in Kyiv had a clique of fans who would come. Even when games were for nothing (Obolon and Arsenal) - and I went just because it was something to do; to see a game - It was not an event like Penn State vs Ohio State which attracts alumni and fans alike or an NFL game.

Also games in late October and November will not attract that many fans because its just too cold. Although back in the late 90s when Dynamo was playing well in the ECLeague I was at Respublikanskyj and there was 60,000+ and also for YKPAIHA vs Germany it was a sellout of 82,000+.

I guess there is not a middle class with expendible cash that would go weekly to such games.

In YKPAIHA the number of significant "top event" games just doesn't exist as there used to be in xCCCP times.

In regard to the English Premier league - Sponsors pump in millions which have raised the level of competition to be probably the best domestic competition. The league also relaxed the number of foreigners that could play and this lead to clubs investing heavily in youth (not English) but African. YKPAIHA just does not have enough pull to bring world class foreigners. Who (foreigners) in there right mind would want to live in Donetsk in November????

There is the factor now that live transmission of high quality games from Western Europe can be seen in your living room. It might be better to stay inside and watch ManUtd/Liverpool/Chelsea/Milan/Inter/Real/ every week until you're blue in the face then go see your local scrubbers.

 

I'd also like to add in the state of many stadiums. Metalist recently refurbished their stadium, and I haven't been since that has been completed, but before that, it was really a very basic stadium. The bigger teams still have nice stadiums, but some of the lower teams still play on fields that some high schools might be ashamed to call home.

 

You may be on to something now.

I remember going to a 1987 concert by Paul Simon in Kyiv. I remember thinking to my 13-year-old self "Man this was cool". There was NOTHING ELSE. The choices were, Dynamo Kyiv, Sokil Kyiv, a small sprinkling of other local sport teams (Stroitel, SKA - both men's basketball, Dynamo - ladies' basketball, Aviator - rugby, Spartak - ladies' handball, SKA - men's handball, etc), a periodic May Day Parade, and largely pointless naging out in the city's centre. Too rarely did we have a reason to visit our concert and thetre halls.

Today, there are many more options. The malls, the car shows, the MMA extravaganzas, the beauty pageants, prostitutes, dance clubs. There are so many options. So, it is almost obvious that Dynamo Kyiv's (for example) crowds went down from 50,000 - 100,000 EVERY FREAKING MATCH even in the league or domestic cup to 10,000 (and even then if its a worthwhile opponent).

P.S. I remember sitting in the stands for the 1985 Dynamo Kyiv - SKA Rostov-na-Donu 1/16 USSR Cup match when there were nearly 60,000 people in the stands. Imagine that!

 

That is also a good point.

The 1985 match I mentioned in the above post included the entire 1985 Dynamo Kyiv roster, which included the 1975 Ballon 'd Or winner, Oleg Blokhin, the future 1986 Ballon d' Or winner Belanov and about 10-12 USSR Internationals from the 1985-1988 era. Even the decided underdog, SKA, had Sergei Andreev (who I, incidentally, consider the best Rostov player ever and one of the best in Soviet Football ever). Today, we're lucky to have one or two marque player on the team. 1985 Dynamo had 10.

 

The USSR top league was a damn good league, close to world class despite udnerachieving in Europe. The rivalries had lots of tradition and alot of that is gone now. Though Ukraine's attendance will rise with SD's new stadium, and so will Russia's with Zenit, CSKA, and myaso all building new ones.

 

Because, let's face it, what else is there to do in Donetsk??? Not trying to be fecetious, just wondering out loud.

 

Kazan does have a pretty good hockey team (unlike Piter). I have no idea about Perm. Could be the club's infrastructure?

 

I still think it's a cost versus quality issue. Other than Zenit and a few of the other top teams, most of the sides are pretty average right now. Ticket prices aren't necessarily high, but they are for the people who want to go, ordinary working class people. Right now you really have to be a true supporter of a club to pay your money to see them, because neutrals are probably thinking, why pay money when I can watch Manchester or Madrid? Sort of the same affect in the states, although the sport is not nearly as popular here. How many times have you heard people say they are fans of United or Barcelona, but could NEVER watch an MLS game?

 

Well the last time I went to ukraine and saw a match I thought the tickets were cheap and I asked my ukrainian friend why the stadium was so empty he said that even though football was really popular the games were still expensive for them. Like my aunt only makes 500 hyrivans a month in ukraine so I think that the ticket prices are still the biggest problem even though they seem cheap to us.

 

I'm one of them. I do watch a lot of sports on TV, yet MLS is just too sad to waste two hours of my life on.

 

To be honest, I don't find the standard of play lower than most european leagues.

 

Wow, what a surprise there. The speed of the game is very very slow, how many players besides Beckham ( bench player ) play for strong NT sides ? The quality is low but getting better, it's no worse than Poland, Czech Rep. Serbia, Switzerland, Croatia, etc.

 

This is the last post I'll make about MLS, since its already steering the thread off topic, which I am just as guilty of doing. MLS is nowhere near England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France of course. But I bet most MLS teams would beat mid to low table sides from Scotland, Ukraine, Russia and the leagues Dima listed. But the point was, that obviously there is a higher quality football product out there for people to watch. It doesn't cost anything, other than your cable bill, to get Serie A, Premiership and La Liga beemed onto your couch. This teams, because of the money, are generally better than Kazan, Perm or Dnipro. The same factor I see in the States, where countless soccer fans take little interest in MLS while following every move of clubs like Chelsea, Barcalona and Manchester, could easily be replicated in Russia and Ukraine.