The Russian Football Union (RFU) is a sports organization that promotes football in Russia. The President of the RFU at the moment is Vitaly Leontyevich Mutko. The organization manages sporting events at the national level (national championship, cup, and so on). Also, the RFU President manages the training of the Russian national team. The headquarters of the organization is located in Moscow.
History
Before the RFU, there were several similar organizations. For the first time a similar management appeared in the Russian Empire, namely in 1912. The organization was named the All-Russian Football Union and was admitted to FIFA. During the Soviet Union, urban leagues were engaged in a long period of management. Only in 1934 did the USSR Football Section appear. FIFA took her after 12 years. Later, she got into the formed UEFA committee, and then was renamed.
The Russian Football Union appeared in 1992. The RFU President was soon elected, and the organization managed to recover in FIFA that same year.
Presidents
The first president of the RFU is Vyacheslav Koloskov. He rose to the post immediately after the foundation of the organization. The President of the RFU until Mutko was in office until 2005. He was repeatedly criticized by the public, who was dissatisfied with the work of the organization.
Vitaliy Mutko headed the RFU in April 2005. 99 deputies took part in the elections, Mutko received 96 votes. At his post, he spent 4.5 years. During this time, Russian football began to rise. The adult team surprised fans by taking third place at the European Championships in 2008. In 2006, the youth team under 17 turned out to be the strongest in the championship among European teams. Successful performances were shown by Zenit from St. Petersburg, who won the UEFA Cup and Super Cup.
After a successful 2008, a recession began, which led to the absenteeism of the Russian team at the 2010 World Cup. In November 2009, immediately after losing in the qualifying group of Slovenia, the leadership dismissed Vitali Mutko. One of the reasons for Mutko's departure was the decree of Medvedev, who at that time was the president of the country. According to him, government officials cannot fulfill the duties of presidents of sports organizations.
Simonyan, Fursenko and Tolstoy
Immediately after Mutko’s resignation, Nikita Simonyan rose to the post of president of the RFU . However, he did not hold the post for a long time, already at the beginning of February 2010 Sergey Fursenko took his place. It was he who transferred the Russian championship to the autumn-spring scheme, which is used in European leagues. A similar system is applied today. At EURO 2012, the national team could not leave the group, Fursenko took the blame. Soon he resigned.
In the summer of 2012, Simonyan Nikita again became the acting president of the RFU. However, he remained in office until September of that year and was replaced by Nikolai Tolstoy. At the end of May 2015, he was forced to resign. The majority voted for his resignation.
Mutko
In early September 2015, Vitaliy Mutko returned to the post. One of the reasons for choosing was non-alternative. The term of office was one year. During this period, a serious increase in the popularity of football in the country did not happen. In the fall of 2016, Mutko was re-elected President of the Russian Federation of Football. This choice caused dissatisfaction of the fans, which caused unsatisfactory performance of the team at the European Championship in France. In addition, the RFU was implicated in cases of doping by Russian athletes. His name repeatedly appeared in reports of the World Anti-Doping Agency. They said that Mutko knew about the "dirty" athletes and in every possible way covered them. Also, according to WADA, Vitaliy Leontyevich was aware of the substitution of doping samples.