By Eurohoops Team/ info@eurohoops.net
CSKA Moscow Andrey Vatutin commented on the VTB League publishing the budgets of its clubs on the organization’s website, saying that it creates a problematic situation for his team.
“In my opinion, putting the budgets on display is purely for Russian entertainment. It does nothing but creates problems for CSKA,” Vatutin said in an interview with Izvestia. “The whole continent counts the money in our pocket, carefully ‘covering’ their own. None of the other national leagues, as well as the Euroleague, plan to do this.”
CSKA operated on 40.7 million euros in 2018-2019 according to the list published by VTB League. Khimki Moscow has the second-biggest budget with a sum of 27.7 million. These numbers include the overall operating cost for each club in the previous season and not only the salaries of players and coaches.
Vatutin added that just throwing numbers when comparing the budget of CSKA to the ones of other clubs isn’t the right approach since there are many different factors to take into account in the whole discussion.
“It’s wrong to make comparisons here: We work in different countries, economies and tax systems. In the end, the difference in climate is also an important factor. When players have two identical offers, one from CSKA, the other from Barcelona, 95% of them will choose Catalonia. Better climate, more sun and so on.”