Alexander Katushev: we are proud that "The Russian Olympians Foundation" is continuing the tradition of patronage that goes back in the Russian sports to more than a century ago

Yesterday, on 16 December, in "Krokus-expo" the first day of the exhibution "Sochi and Kazan - the relay of the Russian sports" was held. At the plenary meeting one of the speakers on the topic "Cooperation of the sports and business" was the excecutive director of the "Russian Olympians Foundation" Alexander Katushev. The special correspondent of the Agency of sport information "All Sport" reports on the first part of Alexander Katushev's presentation, devoted to the tradition of patronage in the Russian sports.

"Personally for me, next year there will be two memorable dates: the 30th anniversary of the Olympic Games in Moscow and the 5th anniversary of "The Russian Olympians Foundation", - Alexander Katushev pointed out. - Actually, these two dates can easily be connected. It appears that since the start of their development the sport and the patronage - and "The Russian Olympians Foundation" is undoubtedly a patronate organisation - are closely connected. The successes of the Russian athletes in the beginning of the XX century came true with the help of Russian patrons. Here I can mention the first International Olympic Commitee (IOC) members for Russia Alexey Butovsky and Grigory Ribopierre, world famous businessmen Savva Morozov and Nikolay Riabushinsky. It's enough to say that the motor ship for the Russian team to travel to the Olympics-1908 in London was sent with the help of the Russian businissmen. We are proud that many decades later "The Russian Olympians Foundation" is continuing the tradition of patronage, that goes back in the Russian sports to more than a century ago".

"At present more than 1500 non-commercial organisations in the world are somehow related to sport, - Alexander Katushev went on. - Their rotal contribution is about 300 mln dollars annually. Is it much or not? That's enough to say that this sum is comparable with the whole country budget of Brasilia. "The Russian Olympians Foundation", which was established by the 15 leading and most famous Russian businissmen, is one of the biggest in the world. Annually athletes and coaches of the Russian teams in 41 kinds of sports get the grants on the total sum of from 1 to 2 billion rubles. In the recent 5 years since the establishment of the Foundation we have paid out more than 8,5 thousand grants on the total sum of 4 billion rubles. Let me give you more details on the programs of "The Russian Olympians Foundation" in the second part of my presentation".