beyondbrics

Vitaly Mutko, it would seem, is a man who really likes his breakfast.

While Russia’s sports minister was already well known for leading the country to its worst ever Winter Olympics in Vancouver this year, a new audit report shows Mutko and his colleagues didn’t even have the dignity to scrimp while doing it.

According to Russia’s Audit Chamber, Mutko spent a whopping $4,500 on five breakfast vouchers a day during his 20-day, while simultaneously racking up a $32,400 bill for his hotel room, over 12 times the limit allotted for state bureaucrats-and $4,225 more than the room’s actual listed price over the period.

The numbers pale in comparison with the amounts stolen from the Russian state annually on everything from construction schemes to factory sales, but the report sheds a rare light on the management of sport – a fascinating issue in any country.

Mutko has been on the defensive since the report was published at the start of the weekend, dismissing the document’s claims about how much was spent and on whom as “speculation… nit-picking and complete nonsense”, according to Interfax, the Russian newswire.

Vyacheslav Fetisov, head of the Federation Council’s sports committee, has also rushed to shield Mutko, stressing to journalists on Monday that the Council was not putting together any motions for the sports minister’s dismissal.

While Mutko may yet escape the chopping block, the 71-page report will offer little solace to President Dmitry Medvedev, who ordered the investigation after Russia received 11th place in Vancouver, its lowest standing in a winter Olympics to date.

The audit paints a decrepit picture of Russia’s Olympic training programme, which has steadily deteriorated since the fall of the Soviet Union, and accuses Russia’s sports bureaucrats of embezzling funds allocated for athletes and their equipment. Some of Russia’s sportsmen were trained by coaches only qualified to teach primary and secondary school gym classes, it says.

Despite the harsh findings, the report may not be ammunition enough to put Mutko before the firing squad. While it would appear Medvedev has had the sports minister in his sights since March when he ordered the investigation and unsuccessfully asked “those who bore responsibility for the Olympics preparations” to step down, the Audit Chamber said it could not find any individuals to blame for the disaster as the country did not have one single committee overseeing the preparations.

Mutko, on the other hand, told reporters at a press conference on Friday that he found the country’s current infrastructure for overseeing sports “close to ideal” and advised the Audit Committee to stop interfering.
“I can’t work for five months and be for four months in inspections,” said the minister whom Russian papers have reported to be a close friend of Vladimir Putin, the prime minister.

While Mutko claimed he had no say in choosing the hotel room, he may want to practice more discretion at Russia’s 2014 Olympics in Sochi. The government is already projecting the games to cost $14bn, three times as much as any Winter Olympics before it– breakfasts excluded.
Further reading:

Moscow Times, Sports minister spent $4,500 on Vancouver breakfasts
Vedomosti, Sports minister accusations