Football Spartak is tired of wasting money on nothing

Discussions about the Spartak stadium are long-standing. And nevertheless the club's fans and administration still hope that sometime they will have their own arena. This was one of the major points discussed by Andrey Chervichenko, Spartak's vice-president in the interview to SE correspondent.

• When are you going to build your own stadium?

• During the recent meeting of the Moscow government a resolution was passed to give Spartak a plot near "Universitet" and "Prospect Vernadskogo" metro stations, the resolution is currently passed to the mayor of Moscow for adoption. The plot is 50 hectares large. Now it is used as a place for garages and dump. The place is very convenient, one of the most prestigious in Moscow. We are planning not only stadium but also a large sports and entertaining complex there.

• What hindered the construction near "Botanichesky sad" metro station where it was planned initially?

• We had to solve numerous problems with tenants, pay out compensation, lay a by-pass highway… According to our estimations this would cost us a dear sum - about $25 billion. Not to think of the construction itself.

• How much does it cost for Spartak to rent stadiums annually?

• You can count it yourself. The rent for the Champions League match in Luzhniki cost $100,000 plus $10-20 thousand for additional overhead charges and $50,000 for the Russian championship. The rent took all the money from tickets - our income was ridiculous, only $10,000. If we compare that to that of Manchester United, favorite in our country, we'll see that last year its income exceeded 116 billion pounds last year, the major stake of it -tickets selling - 38 billion pounds.