The State Duma approved the use of beer at Russian stadiums

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

We did not have time to rejoice at the WHO data, according to which the Russians began to drink less than the French, when our deputies, apparently, decided that they did not need a too sober voter and were allowed to sell beer at stadiums.

The State Duma adopted in the first reading a draft on the retail sale of beer and beer drinks at stadiums. The authors of the initiative were the deputies Igor Lebedev and Dmitry Svishchev, the correspondent of the Federal News Agency reports.

According to the document, we are talking about the sale of the relevant products during the matches of the official football competitions. Both organizations and individual entrepreneurs who have entered into agreements with the organizer will be able to take advantage of this opportunity in the provision of catering services. The only exception will be the time of the youth sports competitions. As the authors explained, the money received from trade will be used to finance measures to develop professional and youth sports. In particular, according to Lebedev, in this way it will be possible to educate a greater number of talented athletes, and “in 10-15 years we will have 300 Artyom Dzyub, 500 Alexandrov Golovinykh, 600 Denisov Cheryshevs, 800 Igor Akinfeevs”.

This, of course, is good, but where did the money that was allocated for the development of children's sports go? Why do we have a few of the professional clubs, where Lebedev is going to send money, too, are seriously investing in children's and youth sports? Of the Russian Premier League, only Krasnodar has a real world-class academy. But according to the portal "Championship.com", the total cost of the transfer of the injured midfielder "Barcelona" Malcolm to "Zenith" will be about € 50 million, or about 3.5 billion rubles. At the same time, Malcolm himself does not play at the moment due to chronic injuries received in Spain. According to the website of Spartak Moscow, which ranks 10th in the Russian championship, Fernando's transfer from Sampdoria alone cost Spartak 13 million euros (970 million rubles). In total, Spartak spent 47 million euros or 3 billion 290 million rubles on foreigners who failed the season and sent the team to the middle of the standings. For understanding, here are examples of not just expensive purchases, but billions thrown down the drain, which did not bring any benefit to their clubs.

And now the funny thing is, the 2019-2021 budget project provides for budgetary allocations in 2019 for the payment of scholarships of the President of the Russian Federation to the champions of the Olympic, Paralympic and Deaflympics in 2019-2020 increased by 720 million rubles. The budgetary allocations for the training of national teams in priority summer and winter Olympic sports and the remuneration of officials, who now require payments to WADA in 2019, have been increased by almost 1 billion rubles. But to ensure the operation of stadiums, additional equipment of training grounds, the creation and operation of children's football centers, 3.92 billion rubles should have been spent, that is, one Malcolm or Shyurle with Till and Fernando. So maybe the deputies should pay attention to this and ask the state corporations why billions fly to useless purchases, and neither Spartak nor Zenit have a real good academy?

But no, it is better to sell "more beer" in stadiums in order to replenish budgets and give even more money to buy foreigners. So, the deputy Svishchev, in turn, drew attention to the need for a special approach to organizing the sales themselves. According to him, the adoption of such measures will help reduce alcohol consumption by Russians, since they will not try to drink as much beer as possible before the match, and they will only be able to consume it in a competition - before the game and during the break.

As the deputy Sergei Vostretsov, famous for the bill on depriving non-working citizens of free medical care and pensions, said, “If everything is organized exactly as the authors say, and the money will go to the development of our sport, I’m all for it.” We all know very well that fans often come to games in a state in which it is better not to leave the house,”Vostretsov noted. Two glasses of beer for the whole match will do less harm than a bottle of vodka drunk before the game, the parliamentarian is sure. But he could not explain what prevents those who drink a bottle of vodka from "catching up" with beer at the stadium and finally losing their human appearance. “I hope that we will see the result from the direction of funds as soon as possible. It's always nice when our guys win,”Vostretsov summed up.

But what happened quite recently, when beer was sold everywhere, he is silent, because money does not smell. Vostretsov forgot how 17 years ago, on June 9, 2002, riots took place in Moscow, caused by the demonstration on the big screen of the World Cup match between Russia and Japan. After the crowd pumped up with alcohol went to destroy everything, one person died, 79 people were injured (including 16 police officers), 107 cars were broken, 26 people were convicted. And I forgot that at that time, too, beer was sold in unlimited quantities, and the whole area was littered with one and a half liter plastic bottles and glasses. Let us just recall what happened then in the capital of our Motherland.

The most interesting thing is that on December 1, 2019, the media noted that Russia was able to defeat the famous "Russian drunkenness" and significantly reduce alcohol consumption per capita. The French edition of Le Mond writes about this with reference to statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO). Between 2003 and 2016, per capita alcohol consumption in Russia decreased by 43 percent, according to WHO statistics. Moreover, Russians began to drink less strong alcohol (its consumption fell by 67 percent), giving preference to beer and wine.

As of 2017, for every Russian over 15 years old, there was an average of 11.1 liters of pure alcohol per year. This is less than that in France (11.7 liters), but still more than the European average (9.8 liters). As the newspaper notes, the introduction of restrictive measures contributed to the decrease in alcohol consumption: a ban on advertising of alcoholic products, restrictions on the sale of alcohol in the evening and at night, as well as restrictions on the sale of alcohol to minors. The WHO believes that the consequence of the decrease in alcohol consumption in Russia is an increase in life expectancy in the country. And then the deputies are discussing, and now they are adopting a number of laws to increase alcohol consumption. It seems that they do not like it, that the Russians began to look at everything with too sober eyes.