Putin with the phrase “Where is the money, Zin?” assessed the plans of the RSF to pay for construction
Putin at the Council on sports said about the need to pragmatically use the resources of the Russian sports Fund and noted that he is concerned when the funds go to construction projects, because they will not be found
Vladimir Putin said at a meeting of the sports council that he was alarmed by situations when funds from the Russian Sports Fund (RSF) are planned to be sent to construction projects, since then “there will be nothing to find.”.
Putin joked after the head of the Ski and Snowboard Federation Dmitry Svishchev expressed his gratitude to the departments and the RSF that he was probably the Minister of Sports Mikhail Degtyarev “concocted to say.”.
The minister and I spoke not so long ago, they are going to finance all sorts of construction projects from this fund and so on. I don’t want to say anything, I don’t suspect anyone of anything, but as soon as construction projects begin: “Where is the money, Zin?” – a sacramental question immediately arises. There will be nothing to find, this is what alarms me, Putin said.
According to him, when the funds go directly to the federation, “then everything is clear and simple.”.
During the meeting, Putin noted that it is necessary to correctly allocate priorities and pragmatically use the resources of the RSF and extrabudgetary sources. “We need to talk about this separately with this fund, the minister and I have already dealt with how this money, completely falling into the hands of officials, somehow for various secondary-level events or less promising ones, did not dissolve,” Putin said.
In 2024, Putin instructed to create a fund for additional support of sports, the property of which will be formed mainly through targeted deductions from gambling. One hundred applications were submitted for the first competition for additional funding, the fund reported in March 2026 that it distributed 12 billion rubles for additional support to 93 federations in 103 sports.
In October, at a meeting with Degtyarev, Putin said that money from the RSF should be directed to support sports, not “on the machine with cars.” The next day it became known that the RSF canceled 5 competitions for , 2.6 billion.
