Roman Yurievich Babaev is the general director of professional football club CSKA (Moscow).
Dossier
Roman Babaev (photo below) was born on February 13, 1978 in Chelyabinsk, USSR. Russian citizen. Higher education (Lomonosov Moscow State University).
Expert in the field of jurisprudence, professional sports, management. Single. Career in the structure of the club CSKA - legal adviser, head of the legal department, since March 2007 - general director of the club. Cavalier of the Order of the Badge of Honor (2006).
Way to CSKA
Today, Roman Babaev, whose biography determined his career as a lawyer, is one of the best young managers of Russian football. And then, in 1999, a fourth-year student at Moscow State University had the opportunity to work at the eminent football club CSKA as a legal adviser. The end of the 90s - troubled times, affecting the team's football economy, financed by all kinds of clothing markets. It was a dead end road with the absence of the slightest prospect of developing club infrastructure. Roman Babaev decided not to have any more business with this office and to leave faster.
But the year 2001 has come. The team was joined by new shareholders led by Eugene Giner, who sought to do everything possible and impossible to ensure the rule of law in football. And in those days there was a situation when there was a legislative vacuum (the absence of any norms determining the status of professional sports), and the staff of most organizations did not even have such a unit as a lawyer. With the advent of Giner, it became clear that he and his team are an alliance of people with great ambitions that can bring the CSKA team to a whole new level of development. And Roman Babaev stayed.
From the first day, he and the club president began to realize this goal.
The main thing was to correctly build the power vertical in the club, as well as select professional people for key positions in the team: commercial, executive and financial director, director of information policy of the club, head of the selection department. Babaev himself headed legal management for 6 years. And only in 2007, by decision of the board of shareholders, he was appointed to the position of club director general. Thanks to the professionalism of the leadership, an effective and efficient system was built without political and clanish intrigues.
Achievements of CSKA (2001-2015)
In 2001 , a new leadership of the club and new sponsors in the person of ABO-Capital, the English company Blue Castle Enterprises Limited and the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation joined the CSKA team, which was dragging out a miserable existence . This was the beginning of the revival of the legendary club, which later became the leader of Russian football.
From 2001 to 2015, the CSKA team won the Russian championship 5 times, 5 times won silver and 2 times bronze medals, 6 times became the owner of the Super Cup, 2 times a quarter-final of the Champions League. In 2005, the club won its first European Cup trophy - the UEFA Cup. Naturally, these victories are the result of the joint efforts of the coaching staff and the president of the team. To a large extent, the director general of CSKA Roman Babayev also had a hand in the success of the club.
Secrets of Success
The secret of success in any enterprise (and especially in football), as you know, is attitude to business.
All clubs that operate on government grants are often doomed. In these matters, the team’s president Giner and general director Babaev turned out to be visionaries. This was clearly seen in the example of such clubs in the Russian Premier League as Saturn and Anji. Living on budget money is the road to nowhere, a waste of public money. Russian (and all post-Soviet) football cannot be a business in its purest form, since the solution of financial issues is not put before the team leaders. Only sporting tasks are determined.
Therefore, such clubs only develop budget funds. Private funding is different. This is a process of daily control and accounting of funds. Therefore, Giner and Babaev determined a strategy that has been in force for more than 10 years: the bet should be placed on untwisted, young, little-known, but talented players. According to Roman Babayev, inviting such players is always a risk. Here it is necessary to take into account the mentality of the football player, and his character, and marital status, and perspective, and ambition.
Here is just a small list of young players who gained fame thanks to their appearance on the CSKA team during the reign of Giner and Babaev:
- Sergey Semak, Andrey Solomatin - participants of the 2002 World Cup;
- Igor Akinfeev, Rolan Gusev, Ivica Olic - participants of the 2004 European Championship;
- Milos Krasic - participant of the 2004 Olympics;
- Chidi Odia - Member of the African Cup of Nations (2006);
- Wagner Love - Member of the America's Cup (2007);
- Seydou Doumbia, Keisuke Honda - participants in the 2010 World Cup;
- Alan Dzagoev, Pontus Wernblum, Tomas Necid - participants of the 2012 European Championship;
- Ahmed Moussa is a participant in the 2014 World Cup.
Sponsors at Babaev
The existence and success of the club is currently impossible without a sponsor.
This was well understood by Eugene Giner and Roman Babaev. The club’s first sponsor was Conti.
Then there was Sibneft, which invested almost $ 55 million in the team. Currently, the club is sponsored by Russian Networks. The amount of the concluded contract is 130 million dollars (4 billion rubles).
About biography and nationality
It is difficult to imagine a successful football team that does not have its own modern stadium. This was clear to Yevgeny Giner and Roman Babaev.
In 2007, the construction of an elite football stadium that met all UEFA requirements began. In the allotted territory, the construction of a youth sports school, a business center, a hotel, a museum of the CSKA club is planned.
And who is this Roman Babaev? His nationality is not exactly known.
Some say that he is Armenian, others - that a Jew, like Giner. In fact, without taking into account nationality, let’s say that Roman Babaev is the man who helped one middle club of the Russian championship to become the fortieth team in the UEFA ranking with an annual budget of $ 90 million.