At the end of the last week it was finally decided who the boss in the Russian hockey is. The joint statement by Vladislav Tretyak, the head of the Russian Hockey Federation (RHF), and Alexander Medvedev, the top manager of Gazprom and one of the heads of the newly created Continental Hockey League (CHL), looked rather optimistic – all the disagreements have been settled and RHF has passed the right to CHL for carrying out the Russian championship for the period of three years.  

One may assume that the conflicting parties have managed to make a bargain. It was important for Tretyak to keep the expression “Russian championship”. Well, it was easy to give him that bone. Another bone is financial one. The compensation for passing the organizer’s rights is 150,000,000 rubles which is less than was asked by Tretyak (220 millions), but even that amount was a blessing.   

At the background of the global agreements even the debates about the allowed number of legionaries lost its topicality. So everyone is satisfied now that it will be allowed to have 5 foreign players and the goalkeeper is equalized to two field players. It’s only the key actors of the conflict who can say now whether it has really had any sense fighting three months about the questions that finally were decided within a few hours.

So the Tretyak’s-led Federation got the two votes out of seven in the constitutors’ board of the Autonomous not-for-profit organization CHL. The draft of the agreement says that all the questions within the reference terms of the RHF would be decided with 100% of votes while the questions relating CHL activities would be decided with two thirds. That means that RHF only received a nominal representation.

The “winners” state that the interests of the national teams wouldn’t be hurt and all the disagreements would be settled through the agency of the council of trustees of FHR. As for additional funds and revenue out of commercials – all that will be strictly controlled by the new league. So not only has FHR lost its tools of influence, it has been taken away even its relative financial independence.  

Other points and good intentions are still to be arranged in the future. In the meantime, the rating draw ceremony is appointed for 9th of April. Based on the results of the draw, 24 clubs – 21 Russian ones and 3 clubs from the near abroad will be divided into four groups. Alexander Medvedev said with time the number of clubs may come to 32 with the gradual arriving of clubs from the Western Europe. In that case we would outstrip the North America in terms of number of clubs.  

The grandiose project, intended “to give an urge to development of the Russian hockey”, still leaves some “naive” questions to be answered. For example, who said that the more clubs the better? And would it suit the fans, this division of the clubs? Is it possible to have a fiscal body in Russia that would be securing the financial discipline, including the ceiling of the players’ salaries? Would it be liked by the western European national federations that now it’s not only NHL to bleed them, taking the players and the whole clubs? Would the prospective sponsors see any sense in sponsorship of the project where 8 largest Russian companies are present headed by Gazprom? What else are the founders and the clubs are going to gain the money with, except usual making a dive into the budget pocket, i.e. taking our money?      

Of course, these questions are to be answered not only by the “winners”, but they will be the first to give an account.