Football Federation held the last official match of 2010 and will rest a month and half. But on January 22, presidential elections will be held at the federation.
Current president of GFF stated at the press conference - I will not talk to press before the elections. The topic which "World Sport" is going to write now, Sichinava talked about it at that "last" meeting with journalists. As Sichinava has not stated yet whether he puts up his candidature or not, no one will consider this article as his PR or anti PR.
To tell the truth, it is not clear to us why GFF should find rich owners for the clubs. Perhaps because the federation does not want the championship which is organized by it to be disrupted.
10 clubs in Supreme League - "Zestaponi", "Wit Georgia" Tbilisi, "Olimpi" Rustavi, "Sioni" Bolnisi, "Spartaki" Tskhinvali and "Dinamo" Tbilisi have owners. "Dinamo" has a new owner. It is Roman Pipia, businessman who lives in Russia. At the beginning of the season, "Wissol" became owner of "Torpedo" Kutaisi and the federation played its role in it.
3 clubs are left. According to Sichinava, "Kolkheti" Poti is in a better situation than other two clubs: "The agreement has already been signed with the club. Owner has not changed, the club has just a new sponsor. Port of Poti will fulfil terms of the agreement since January. Only "Samtredia" and "Mglebi" Zugdidi have problems. I am not going anywhere till the elections and I will do my best to find owners or sponsors for these clubs by February 12 when the championship will be resumed.
I will tell you what I think about the problem which is in Samtredia. Management of the club does not think that football and Supreme League are private sectors and they should find sponsors not the federation. There is such tendency that all clubs can move to Supreme League if they want it. But when you are moving to Supreme League, you should know who is your sponsor, owner or what is your budget. Nobody pays attention to it.
What is their principle when they are coming to Georgian Supreme League? Everyone wants to be champion. No one thinks that the club which is in Supreme League, first should make fans happy in its city and region.
Now let us see how many legionaries are in Samtredia. 14 players in the main team and 2 - in reserve team. I do not believe that there is no player in Samtredia who can play in the main team.
There are such cases when 1500 GEL is paid to other players and 100 GEL is paid to local players. It is not right. Such ignorance is the biggest enemy. The budget must contain that 500 000 GEL which is signed with sponsor, not that million and half GEL which someone might give you tomorrow".
Such situations regress Georgian football for 10 years. Sponsoring clubs is one of the parts of election campaign. Zviad Sichinava can say million times - more "no", than "yes" - but it is obvious that he wants to run the federation for 4 years again. If we do not see his name on the ballot-paper on January 22, it will be "others" choice, not his.



Phridon Kervalishvili