Minister of Sports Vitaly Mutko is one of the most closed officials to the press. The statesman appears before the public either during the major sporting successes of Russian athletes, or as a defendant in scandals. Vitaly Mutko is spoken about in different ways. He is called both a strong business executive, and a hard-working official, and a person from Putin's close circle. Let's try to briefly understand the biography of the state functionary.
Childhood and education
December 8, 1958, in the family of a loader and a machine operator near Tuapse, a son, Vitaly, was born. Since childhood, the boy dreamed of connecting his life with the sea. After 8 classes of high school, he decides to enter the river school in Rostov-on-Don. Having flunked the entrance exams, Vitaly wants to try his luck in Leningrad. There he enters first at a vocational school, and then at the Petrokrepost Naval School (now Shlisselburg). After graduation, Vitaly Leontievich worked for 2 years on the excursion motor ship "Vladimir Ilyich", which served excursion routes from the Northern capital to Valaam and Kizhi. The year 1978 became fatal for the future minister. Then he decided to enter the Leningrad River School, where he began to get involved in the trade unionjob, which subsequently ensured that he met the right people.
Career start
In 1979, Vitaly Leontievich joined the Communist Party. At the school, he headed the department of the trade union committee, and in 1983, by distribution, he ended up in the committee of the Kirovsky district of Leningrad. In parallel with his work at the post, Mutko continued his studies at the Leningrad Institute of Water Transport. By 1990, Vitaly Mutko could be spoken of as an established statesman. He heads the department for social issues of the district executive committee and becomes one of the initiators of the establishment of the Council of Chairmen. During the coup d'état, it is this organization that will support the nomination of Anatoly Sobchak for the role of mayor of St. Petersburg. Probably, it was the acquaintance with Anatoly Alexandrovich that provided Mutko with a quick career advancement.
Since 1992, Mutko has been in charge of physical education, medicine and sports in the government of the first mayor of the northern capital. It was then that he met Vladimir Putin, who also worked in the Sobchak team. The civil service of Vitaly Leontyevich was interrupted in 1996, when Vladimir Yakovlev became the governor of St. Petersburg, who fired both Mutko and Putin, and almost the entire team of the first mayor.
Mutko and football
Back in 1992, Vitaly Leontievich began to oversee the St. Petersburg "Zenith" on behalf of the city administration. In 1995 he became the formal president of the team. Then they said about Vitaly Mutko that he highlightsabout half a million rubles from the treasury annually for the functioning of the club. Later, he signs a contract with the B altika brewing company, which became the first sponsor of Zenit. After his dismissal from government posts in 1996, Vitaliy fully concentrated on football work. In 1999, he signed a contract with Gazprom, which is the main shareholder of Zenit to this day. Mutko remained club president until 2005. During this time, the team has significantly improved, breaking into the top five leaders of the domestic championship.
From 2001 to 2003 there was a parallel position held by Vitaly Mutko. According to the rules, the President of the RFU cannot simultaneously be the head of one of the championship clubs, but for some reason this did not embarrass the football officials. In 2005, Mutko again headed the organization, and in 2009 he even became one of the authorized members of FIFA. During his reign there were a number of scandals. The latest was the failure of the Russian team under Hidding and the further payment of a huge severance pay to the coach.
Mutko - minister
In 2008, Putin becomes prime minister and begins to form a cabinet of ministers around him. The portfolio was also received by his old colleague Vitaly Mutko. The sports minister took office on May 12. A year earlier, Mutko was talked about as one of the responsible persons in the preparation of the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi in 2014. Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Vitaly Mutko has focused one of the main areas of his work on the organization of another large-scale project -football world cup 2018. Despite a number of setbacks, he managed to keep the portfolio of the minister in 2012, when Dmitry Medvedev became his immediate superior. Under Vitaly Mutko, the Russian Olympic team for the first time in many years did not enter the top three at the 2012 Olympics. However, the minister is assigned a number of merits. It was under his leadership that they managed to win the right to host the World Cup, the Universiade in Kazan and the Olympic Games in Sochi. Despite all the shortcomings, even negative-minded citizens call the official a strong business executive.
Mutko and the Internet
In 2010, Vitaly Mutko became famous on the Internet. At the FIFA meeting, he represented Russia as a contender for the title of host of the 2018 football championship. In an attempt to impress the public, he decided to give a speech in English. The expression "let me speak from my heart", said by an official with a terrible accent, became a popular meme on the Web the very next day. A video with a speech on Youtube gained several million views in a matter of days.
