Vyacheslav Ivanovich Koloskov is one of the most respected and odious sports functionaries in Russian history. He headed the USSR Football Federation in 1979 and remained in his post after the collapse of a large country. He had to work in a transitional period of the nineties, followed by allegations of corruption and dishonesty, but he held out until 2005, when he finally gave way to younger and more energetic functionaries. For many years, Vyacheslav Koloskov, whose biography will be described below, held high positions in FIFA. Largely thanks to his personal relations with world football bosses, Russia managed to get the right to hold major tournaments on its territory.
Child of war
The life of the legendary official was not easy, and he made his way upstairs to himself. Vyacheslav Koloskov was born in 1941 in Moscow, a week before the start of the war. His father went to the front, and his mother and her baby left for her husband's relatives in the Ryazan region, where she spent the difficult war years.
Ivan Trofimovich, the father of the boy, served conscientiously on the battlefield, driving a truck with Katyusha installations. He safely went through the whole war and returned home, where he was reunited with his family.
The childhood of Vyacheslav Koloskov was held in Izmailovo, which had the notoriety of one of the most gangster regions of Moscow. He lived with his parents in a temporary wooden hut in conditions of terrible crowding, sharing a living space with numerous neighbors. As Vyacheslav Ivanovich himself said, his upbringing was far from aristocratic. Together with other boys who gathered in flocks, he raided the surrounding gardens and even more risky tricks, for which there was always the most severe punishment from his mother, who worked as a janitor and vigilantly watched the restless child.
Young soccer player
In addition to unlawful amusements, Izmailovo boys were selflessly fond of sports, played football in the summer, and Russian hockey in the winter. Little Glory stood out among his peers with his technique, and at the age of nine he began to play football at the stadium “Labor Reserves”. Indomitable energy found a way out, and the boy began to be realized in sports. Two years later, playing for the Wings of the Soviets football club, he played in the Moscow Championship among children.
Koloskov continued to professionally engage in football, thanks to which he managed to get into a sports company when it was time to repay his debt to his homeland in military service. A true universal soldier, he played both football and hockey, defending the honor of the Taman division at the competitions of the Moscow military district, and was a member of the national teams of the capital’s military. During the service, Vyacheslav successfully passed exams at the State Institute of Physical Education, thanks to which he was able to demobilize ahead of time.
Conscientious student
Unlike many other athletes who simply served time at the physical education faculties for the sake of the coveted crust, the native Izmailova took his studies very seriously and faithfully studied scientific approaches to the organization of the training process. He perfectly understood that as a football player he would not become a world champion and, most likely, would end his career by the age of thirty, so he decided to take care of the future.
The future president of the RFU was a very energetic student. He managed to combine study with active social activities, was a Komsomol, participated in amateur performances, played in KVN. In parallel, Koloskov continued to play for the Wings of the Soviets football club, which played in the championship of the capital. Here he even happened to confront the legendary Eduard Streltsov, who had recently been released after many years of imprisonment.
The disgraced striker was not allowed to play for the team of masters, but he was allowed to speak at an amateur level, which is why he had a meeting on the field with a student at the gymnastics institute. Streltsov’s skill did not go away, and he scored one of his goals just from under the footballer Vyacheslav Koloskov, who played the central defender.
Academic career choice
In 1967, a diligent student completed his studies with brilliance, receiving a red diploma. Then Koloskov received an offer to join the Trud team from Novotroitsk, who played in the second league of the Union Championship. He attended several training camps, but after difficult thoughts he refused to move from Moscow.
A graduate of GTSOLIFK sensibly reasoned that it would be rather imprudent to start a career as a professional football player by the age of twenty-six, given the fact that most players completed their active activities in those years by thirty. Moreover, the prospect opened up for him to continue his academic career in his native university, where he was offered to enter graduate school in the field of “soccer hockey”.
The thinking, intellectual student was one of the favorites of Leonid Tarakhovsky, one of the first serious researchers of the scientific methods of organizing game sports in the USSR. He began to oversee Koloskov and introduced him to another of his former students - Anatoly Tarasov, the coach of the hockey club CSKA.
Sports scientist
Vyacheslav Koloskov’s sports career, in fact, ended, and he plunged headlong into the development of the topic proposed to him in the postgraduate school of the SCOLIFK. One of the most burning and unexplored issues in sports science of the time was the problem of athletic uniforms. For many coaches, it was a huge difficulty to bring their wards to the peak of form precisely at the beginning of the largest and most important tournaments. They relied on instinct and luck.
Vyacheslav Koloskov tackled precisely this problem, working closely with his new acquaintance - Anatoly Tarasov. His CSKA was chosen by the experimental group in which a young graduate student conducted his research.
Before each training session, Vcheslav attached sensors to the bodies of athletes, painstakingly and carefully recording and processing instrument readings. He drew the attention of the trainers to the fact that many exercises did not develop hockey players, but on the contrary - they tired them, wore out their body. Vyacheslav Ivanovich thus obtained in numbers the energy expression of the loads of hockey players in training, including strength exercises, as well as elements on ice.
Associate Professor and Scientific Advisor
Thanks to Koloskov’s research, it became possible to systematically plan the entire annual training cycle in order to bring hockey players to peak forms at optimal periods. He brilliantly defended his dissertation on his topic, received a Ph.D. in pedagogical sciences, and remained at the department of the State Academic Pedagogical University. He worked as a senior teacher, associate professor, published several scientific papers.
Return to Wings
Soon he was offered to put his knowledge into practice again and was invited to the hockey club “Wings of the Soviets”, where he became the team’s supervisor. Whether it was an accident or not, but during this period the team was able to break the hegemony of CSKA in domestic hockey and become the champion of the country in 1974. The leading three teams were part of the national team and was considered one of the strongest attacking links in the USSR.
The path of a sports functionary
Valentin Sych, head of the winter sports department at the USSR Sports Committee, decided to invite a competent and knowledgeable person to the position of a trainer-methodologist who could oversee the scientific support for the preparation of domestic hockey teams. Vyacheslav Koloskov naturally turned out to be such a diamond, who decided to take a chance, left his calm chair and plunged into the turbulent world of professional sports.
He showed himself so well in administrative work that he was soon appointed head of the hockey department at the Sports Committee.
During his work, the national team won the world championships three times, became the winner of the Olympic Games. But his main achievement as a functionary was the organization of matches of the famous 1979 Challenge Cup. The USSR team went on an overseas tour, where they spent three matches against the combined team of NHL stars. Solid bonus ones were won, the cup, and most importantly - bright victories and the reputation capital associated with them.
Football chief
In 1979, a long-standing saga began, associated with the reign of Koloskov in Soviet, and then in Russian football. He eagerly plunged into a new business, appointed and dismissed the coaches of the national team. The most risky but justified decision was the appointment of Valery Lobanovsky as head coach of the USSR national football team just a few weeks before the start of the 1986 World Cup.
The patriarch of Ukrainian football accomplished the impossible and turned the gray and mediocre national team into a dream team, which impressed all the fans and specialists with their game on the fields of Mexico. Lobanovsky remained at the helm of the team and two years later led her to the silver medals of the European Championship.
In parallel, Vyacheslav Koloskov made a career in FIFA, where he became vice president, replacing Valentin Granatkin in 1980. He gained considerable weight in the world football organization, worked in ethics and fair play committees, was responsible for organizing football tournaments at the Olympics from 1984 to 2000.
Transition and the struggle for power
Chairman of the USSR Football Federation Vyacheslav Koloskov lost his post along with the collapse of the country in 1991. He made attempts to maintain the integrity of the country's football economy by organizing the championship of the CIS countries, but Moscow clubs declared a riot and demanded their own championship in Russia.
In 1992, the patriarchs of Soviet football, including Viktor Ponedelnik and Anzor Kavazashvili, convened the so-called All-Russian Football Association, which was to become the country's main executive body in the football industry. However, the apparatchik, who had become skilled in the behind-the-scenes struggle, seized the initiative and convened the same participants at a conference that gave the world a new social structure - the Russian Football Union.
Thanks to Koloskov’s connections in FIFA, the RFU painlessly joined the world football organization, while becoming the official successor to Soviet football and inheriting the country's top ranking team. Most Ukrainian players also made their choice in favor of Russia, thereby leaving the former USSR on the periphery of world football.
RFU President
Koloskov’s activity at the head of the country's football economy has been publicly criticized since the beginning of perestroika, and the turbulent era of the nineties provided new food for abuse. He was accused of corruption, the arrangement of match-fixing, the failure of the national team in major tournaments.
Perhaps, there really were reasons for the latter accusation, since at that time many Russian football players had high individual skills, played in leading European championships, however, the national team regularly failed at the world and European championships.
Scandalous leaving
By 2005, the public with a vengeance demanded the extradition of the perpetrator of the failures of Russian football. The last straw was the humiliating defeat of the Portuguese national team with a score of 7: 1. The authority and numerous awards of Vyacheslav Koloskov did not help him, the people demanded the expulsion of the person responsible for football.
Significant pressure from above began to be exerted on the RFU, which was formally considered an independent public organization, and the candidacy of the new head of the RFU, which Vitaly Mutko was to become, was prepared.
A real theatrical performance unfolded, the authorities short-sightedly announced the dismissal of Koloskov, which was followed by the formidable cry of FIFA, where Vyacheslav Ivanovich still held high posts. The RFU is a public, independent organization in whose work government officials should not interfere.
Having shown his teeth, an experienced functionary did not begin to organize a fight for the hot seat of the head of Russian football and left with dignity, announcing a voluntary resignation.
Now Vyacheslav Koloskov is the Honorary President of the Russian Football Union, who did a lot during his retirement so that the 2018 World Cup was held in Russia.
Family of Vyacheslav Koloskov
Tatyana Koloskova, wife of Vyacheslav Ivanovich, has a Ph.D. in history. At one time, she served as deputy director of the State Historical Museum. Over the years of marriage, they had two sons. The eldest of them, Vyacheslav, served as vice president of Interchimprom, and Konstantin repeated the fate of his father and became a sports administrator, working, in particular, financial director of the US Football Federation.