Pryadkin Sergey Gennadievich - Russian football functionary, executive director of the Russian Football Premier League. He is also a member of European football communities. He holds senior positions in UEFA.
A native of Astrakhan
Pryadkin Sergey Gennadievich was born in Astrakhan in August 1961. He received his higher education in Orel in the Kalinin Military Command School, which was under the jurisdiction of the State Security Service - the KGB.
After received a second higher education already in the capital. Pryadkin graduated from the State Institute of Physical Culture. It was the second education that became the main one in his life.
From the KGB to football
After receiving his first higher education, Pryadkin joined the state security agencies. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, he worked in the KGB, and after 1991 he joined the Federal Agency for Government Communications and Information.
Sergey Gennadievich Pryadkin worked at various posts in state security bodies until 1994. Then he moved to the sports society Dynamo, which at that time was looking for how to realize itself in the new economic and political realities.
The first significant project in sports, in particular in football, for Pryadkin was the organization GiRRus. A sports functionary implemented this project in the small German town of Charlottenburg, located near the capital of Germany - Berlin. The main activity of this agency was to accompany football players, primarily Russian, who entered into contracts with foreign clubs. Together with Pryadkin, one of the co-founders of this football project was the Soviet football player and coach Konstantin Sarsaniya, who later became a successful sports agent.
At the head of the Premier League
Sergey Gennadievich Pryadkin came to work in the Russian Premier League in 2001, the year it was founded. For several years, he held various posts, until in 2007 he became the head of the organization, replacing the inconspicuous Mikhail Vorontsov at this post.
Pryadkin also worked actively in the structures of the Russian Football Union. In 2005, he became an adviser to the president of this organization. On the first day of his presidency, Vitaliy Mutko appointed him his adviser.
And during the year, from November 2006 to November 2007, he even acted as the general director of the union. True, during the first 6 months temporarily.
In sports circles, he is clearly associated with the “Mutko Man”. It was with the advent of this functionary in big sport that Pryadkin’s career began to develop actively. First of all, the Russian Premier League felt it.
Former League Leaders
It is worth noting that before this, the Premier League was headed by more significant figures in Russian sports than Pryadkin. So, the first president was the current Minister of Sports Vitaliy Mutko. He was replaced by the ex-president of the Moscow Lokomotiv Valery Filatov, then the honorary post was held by the president of CSKA Evgeny Giner, and even later - the former general director of the Moscow Spartak and Dynamo Yuri Zavarzin.
From 2001 to 2007, the Russian Football Premier League survived five leaders. From November 2007 to today, it is solely led by Sergei Pryadkin. Almost 10 years already.
Conflict with Levchenko
The football functionary Pryadkin is well-known not only as a sports official, but also as a man who has become famous in the pages of the yellow press. Especially in 2011.
It all started after the former Russian midfielder Vladimir Levchenko, who played for the capital “Torpedo” and “Lokomotiv”, Rostov “Rostselmash”, Yaroslavl “Shinnik”, Perm “Amkar”, Vladikavkaz “Spartak” and Grozny “Terek”, headed the Trade Union football players and coaches of Russia.
One of the first events initiated by Levchenko was the check that Pryadkin Sergey Gennadievich underwent, whose biography at that time was closely connected with the Premier League.
The union members were embarrassed that Pryadkin was simultaneously the president of the Premier League, the head of the commission for agency activities of the RFU, and also runs the company, whose list of services includes agent activities. The facts of the agent’s work in football were also verified by Pryadkin’s younger brother, Andrei.
In particular, the purity of the transactions concluded on transfers of the Slovenian footballer Branko Ilic, who briefly played for the football club Moscow and the capital Lokomotiv, was called into question. And also another "railwayman" Magomed Ozdoev.
Conflict resolution
The search for a conflict of interest in the work of Pryadkin was carried out by the ethics commission of the Russian Football Union. However, the data provided was not confirmed. Members of the commission did not find any violations.
True, the ex-footballer Yevgeny Levchenko did not calm down on this. As it turned out later, there was a personal interest in him. According to Levchenko, in 2009, when he was transferred to the Ramensky “Saturn”, Pryadkin, together with his brother Andrei, managed to “launder” about 400 thousand US dollars illegally. In particular, Sergey Gennadyevich Pryadkin was accused of this. The Premier League also received some criticism from the player.
The result was Levchenko’s appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland, whose decision is still unknown.
At the same time, Pryadkin continues to occupy the post of president of the Russian Premier League football and remain one of the main functionaries in modern Russian sports. The conflict with Levchenko did not significantly affect his career. Pryadkin remains an authoritative specialist in domestic sports.