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MUTKO, Vitaly Leontevich
Minister of Sport, Tourism and Youth Policy of the Russian Federation
President of the Russian Football Union
Vitaly Mutko (Виталий Леонтьевич Мутко) was born December 8, 1958 in the village of Kurinskaya, near Tuapse, Krasnodar Territory. His father was a docker and his mother was a machine-operator in the state timber industry.
In 1972 Mutko entered the Leningrad Construction Vocational School №226 and then transferred to the Petrokrepost (now Shlisselburg) Nautical School, Leningrad Region where he graduated with distinction with a specialization as motor-mechanic.
In 1977-1978 Mutko served as a seaman on ships from the North-West River Steam Navigation and the Leningrad sea port. Originally he worked on the Vladimir Ilich river steamship, making excursion trips to Valaam and Kizhi. Then he transferred to work on a river-sea dry cargo ship. He also worked in the port of Hamburg.
In 1978 Mutko continued his education at the Leningrad River Vocational College. During his studies he was a Komsomol activist, heading the college Komsomol organization. By other accounts, Mutko headed the local trade union committee of the college at this time. In 1979 Mutko joined the Communist Party.
After graduating from the college in 1983, Mutko was assigned to work at the Executive Committee of the Kirov District Soviet of People's Deputies in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg); at the same time he entered the Leningrad Institute of Water Transport where he graduated from in 1987 with a specialization as mechanic-engineer of marine machinery. In the executive committee of the Kirov District, Mutko worked as an instructor and the head of the department for social issues. By 1990 he became secretary and then chairman of the executive committee. In the same year Mutko with other district chairmen set up the Council of Chairmen. Media sources note that it was this organization that proposed Anatoly Sobchak to become mayor of Leningrad. According to Mutko, he met with Sobchak on the Anna Karenina steam-ship on the way to the German city of Kiel where the Baltic Sea Shipping Company arranged the presentation of its ferry. Moreover, in 1990 Mutko was made the deputy of the Kirov Regional council, while in
1991 he became the head of administration of the Kirov District. In 1991 Mutko supported Sobchak at the time of the August putsch and, according to media reports, even organized meetings of workers from the Kirov factory against the putsch conspirators. In 1992 Mutko held the position of deputy mayor of St. Petersburg and chairman of the mayor's committee on social issues, through which he advised on matters relating to culture, public health and sport. At the same time, from June 1991, Vladimir Putin also worked in the St. Petersburg administration, heading the municipal committee on external relations.
In November 1992 Mutko was made curator of Zenit St. Petersburg Football Club. In the summer of 1995 he became president of the club. Mutko was able to secure a sponsorship deal for the club by the Baltica brewing company. The previous year Mutko coordinated the activity of the government of St. Petersburg in the running of the international sporting event, the Summer Goodwill Games. In 1996 Sobchak was replaced by Vladimir Yakovlev as governor of Saint Petersburg, after which Mutko departed from the municipal government (he was replaced by Vyacheslav Shcherbakov). Vladimir Putin also left his position in the city government.
After leaving his post in the municipal civil service, Mutko concentrated on his responsibilities at Zenit football club. He remained as president of the club until 2003. Under Mutko 25% of the club's shares were sold to Lentransgaz, a Gazprom affiliated company. Another 12% of the shares went to president of Petrovsky National Bank Yury Golovin, who would subsequently sell 10% of them to the affiliated MDM Bank. Media sources note that Mutko was also a shareholder of Zenit football club, but the size of his share holding was not revealed. Additional shares of the club were bought by chemical manufacturing company Akron and St. Petersburg bakery Karavay. By December 2005 Lentransgaz had already acquired more than 70% of the club's shares which were by that time the property of the non-commercial partnership of Bankirskiy Dom St. Petersburg. Experts estimated the transaction to be in the region of 30 to 40 million U.S. dollars. Since December 1999 Gazprom has been the main sponsor of Zenit football club. During Mutko's time as president, Zenit St. Petersburg Football Club achieved impressive results on the pitch: a third place (2001) and second place finish (2003) in the domestic league.
In 1999 Mutko graduated from the Faculty of Law, St. Petersburg State University (SPbGU). He defended his diploma thesis on the theme: "Malpractices by the example of sport enterprises."
In the 2000 presidential elections Mutko was one of the authorized representatives of the winning candidate Vladimir Putin. In the same year Mutko headed the electoral staff of St. Petersburg governor candidate Valentina Matviyenko who would later withdraw her candidacy. Matviyenko would eventually be elected governor of St. Petersburg on October 5, 2003.
From August 2001 to October 2003 Mutko held the position of president of the Russian Football Premier League (RFPL). He was the first president of this organization on the structural basis of a 20-team Top Division. On October 29, 2003 newly elected Governor of St. Petersburg Valentina Matviyenko appointed Mutko as Federation Council representative from the St. Petersburg government. Within the Federation Council, he was a member of the Committee on Federation and Regional Policy Issues, chairman of the Commission on Youth and Sport Affairs and a member of the Commission on the Control of Maintenance of Activity of the Federation Council.
On April 2, 2005 at a special football union conference Mutko was elected president of the Russian Football Union (RFS) by 96 out of 99 executive committee members of the union. Mutko announced that his priorities as football union president would be the following: adoption of the state-sponsored football development initiative, as well as the foundation of necessary conditions to boost the public’s involvement in the sport, both as a spectator and a player. At the beginning of his tenure as president, Mutko decided to pay particular attention to the progress and direction of the Russian national football team, announcing that he was very keen on hiring a foreign coach for the team. This goal was realized when Dutch coach Guus Hiddink signed a contact to take over the Russian national team in April 2006.
In June 2006 Mutko defended the dissertation for his Ph.D (Kandidat of Economic Sciences) in the St. Petersburg State University of Economics and Finance on the theme: “Correlation of market and state regulators in the development of physical culture and sport.”
In 2006 Mutko was elected member of the Technical and Development Committee of FIFA.
On February 21, 2007 Mutko was made senator for St. Petersburg for a second time.
In March 2007 the Russian Football Premier League signed a deal with cable TV channel NTV-Plus for the rights to televise live matches from the Russian Premier League. A public outcry resulted as many football fans were concerned over paying to subscribe to watch domestic league games. As a result the contact was amended, ensuring that Russian Premier League matches would be shown on terrestrial television.
In September 2007 Mutko was appointed as a member of the presidential committee on the development of physical culture and sport, highest standard sport, and on the preparation and direction of the XXII Winter Olympic Games and XI Winter Paralympics in Sochi in 2014.
On May 12, 2008 Mutko was named to head the newly founded Ministry of Sport, Tourism and Youth Policy of the Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin’s government. That month Mutko was released from his duties at the Federation Council.
Mutko is the president of the Special Olympics’ Committee for St. Petersburg and the president of the charitable organization Golden Pelican. He has been honored with the following awards: Order of Honor (1994), Order of Friendship (2002), medals dedicated “In Commemoration of the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg” and “In Commemoration of the 1000th anniversary of Kazan”. Mutko is married and has two daughters.
Contact Information
Federal Agency for Physical Culture and Sport
18 ulitsa Kazakova
Moscow 105064, Russia
tel.: + 7 (495) 263 08 40; + 7 (495) 105 72 56
fax: + 7 (495) 263 07 61
official website: www.rossport.ru
Federal Agency for Tourism
47 ulitsa Myasnitskaya
Moscow 103084, Russia
tel.: + 7 (495) 207 79 07; 208 29 37; 207 39 49; 207 71 17
email: rustourism@ropnet.ru
official website: www.russiatourism.ru
Last updated July 9, 2008
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