London’s Arsenal owes Euro 350K to a Minsk school for Alexander Hleb
Under the rules of FIFA, the international football regulatory body, the British have to pay to the Minsk sports school, which started coaching the future Belarusian star, 5 percent of the total transfer contract, after the Gunners signed Alexander Hleb from Germany’s Stuttgart.
The Minsk school used the Belarusian Football Federation to approach FIFA with an official letter, requesting to influence on the British club.
The Geneva-based arbitrary court ordered Arsenal to pay this money to the Belarusians by December 27, 2006. But the things have remained where they were. The European Radio for Belarus called Valiancin Damashevic, who manages the Minsk sports school, to find out if there was any progress in this matter.
“This money will never reach our school’s account, because we do not have a foreign currency account.
When we first started talking about this money, we wanted to open a currency account. But, later Dynamo’s board of directors took a decision that the money would be received at their account and be used for the reconstruction of our training camp,” Damashkevich said.
Igar Zaickau, the deputy chairman of the Belarusian Football Federation, explained his organization stance as follows. In his view, the situation has not changed much over the past two years. We asked him then if FIFA responded officially to the letters from Minsk.
“There is no reaction. Nothing... No respond. As of today, our federation has sent out two more letters to FIFA. There has been no reaction yet regarding this money. I am not in the position to tell you why this is happening.
Part of the money will be given to the coach, who trained Hleb. But, first, you need to get this money. Both federations are aware of the issue, but it has not yet been resolved,” he said.
Finally, the European Radio decided to get the views of Mikalai Shpileuski who is Alexander Hleb’s agent. We have learned that neither Alexander nor his agent have been aware of the money not being sent out yet.
“Anyway, the money will be paid out. The only question is when. It cannot be otherwise, because the regulations are all the same for all of the clubs. I don’t believe that Arsenal have forgotten or been unaware of this debt.
I think the issue will be resolved positively and shortly. I and Alexander, we always had a dream that this money be used in such a way so that it would be for the benefit of children. The biggest problem in Belarus is the lack of decent pitches for training.
This is the real money for constructing a new pitch on the spot where Alexander Hleb used to get his legs injured. I think it is a crime now to have kids train on an asphalt pitch,” Shpileuski said.
Uladzimir Siniakievic, the first coach of Alexander Hleb, shared with our radio an interesting story, associated with this asphalt pitch.
“When Germans came over and saw our pitch, they made jokes about this pitch for children. If they had such a pitch, they would have raised many players like Hleb, they said.”
Photo: Courtesy of http://ru.uefa.com
