Leading to victories: how the representatives of the weaker sex work as presidents of St. Petersburg clubs

different in everything

Clubs run by ladies are women’s. And they are completely different in terms of history, image.

Spartak is, one might say, the legendary club of the city on the Neva. In the middle of the last century, he won the USSR championship, European cups. The famous coach Stanislav Gelchinsky worked there. Spartak plays in the Super League, and the club has a lot to strive for – in the top division of women’s basketball – the Premier League.

Baltiyskaya Zarya is a completely new club that has gone from birth to entry into the Super League, the elite division of Russian handball, in two years. Now he’s about to make his debut.

Different approaches of clubs are shown in everything. And their presidents are not alike.

Natalya Vodopyanova is a famous basketball player, she played for various clubs, including foreign ones, won medals of the European Championships, World Championships, Olympic Games as part of the Russian team. She is a two-time Olympic bronze medalist in 2004 and 2008. She won the 2007 European Championship, when men’s basketball also celebrated success at this level. It’s just that women’s basketball is less talked about. Many generally believe that this sport is not real.

Irina Kuderova came to handball from business, she is a specialist in the field of sports marketing, a teacher at the Russian International Sports University.

Vodopyanova, as befits a basketball player, is a tall woman, Kuderova is of medium height. However, neither height nor other physical data are very important for the management of clubs. The Lokomotiv football club from Moscow, for example, was at one time run by Olga Smorodskaya as president. She is a well-known manager and looks the part. And at the head of some women’s basketball clubs in Russia are people from women’s basketball. You can’t confuse them with anyone. Natalya Vodopyanova, by the way, says that she is not the highest president of the club in the country. But then again, it’s not about height.

Fast strategy “Baltic Dawn”

When looking at Spartak and Baltic Zarya, one can say that they develop in completely different ways. The handball club made a sharp leap, broke into the elite of women’s basketball, winning the Major League championship and the St. Petersburg Cup in the spring. They hope that the performance in the elite division will help to acquire sponsors and pull up a commercial story. Money, as always, is not enough. You have to earn by yourself.

This is where the managerial talents of Irina Kuderova manifest themselves. The City Sports Committee does not provide for women’s handball. They would feed the men’s “Neva”, the most famous handball club in St. Petersburg.

Therefore, the hopes of the “Baltics” are connected with the fact that they will learn about them, success will increase their fame, and then sponsors will come with open arms. A well-known strategy, more than once, unfortunately, failed in the Northern capital and not only.

And on the other hand, what to do if St. Petersburg handball has not yet climbed under the wing of Gazprom, unlike basketball and volleyball? In our age, only big money ensures success – this is usually the case. Basketball Zenit won the VTB United League for the first time in spring. And at the same time, it is on the balance sheet of football Zenit, whose budget exceeds 200 million euros. Volleyball players of “Zenith” also do not live in poverty.

What kind of thing is this handball, the top managers of Gazprom have not yet figured out. In general, this sport has always been in the back of attention in St. Petersburg. And untwisting it is the most difficult task. This is what Kuderova is doing now.

At the same time, the club cannot rely on state funding. At least at the start, the project did not receive any support from the sports committee: the city budget was drawn up and approved before the official presentation of the Baltic Dawn.

However, Irina never gives up. The struggle for survival has begun. One company became the outfitter of the team, another helped to equip the medical headquarters, agreed with the St. Petersburg clinic on the examination of the players … From the world on a string.

There is a hall of the Kirov secondary school where “Baltic dawn” plays. Pupils of the schools of the city on the Neva fill up the team. How long the new club will hold out in the face of political and economic storms, no one knows. Is there a jealous attitude towards him on the part of the handball community in St. Petersburg? Of course.

As well as to any “upstarts”. They call it “Horns and Hooves”. And also “Baltic Dawn”. You also have to go through this. And most importantly, it is impossible to make fans a source for earning money – there are too few of them, fans in St. Petersburg.

However, while Irina Kuderova manages to successfully achieve the goals set for herself and the club.

In the summer of 2021, when the team was preparing for the season in the Major League, Irina posted on her VK page her photo in a T-shirt with the inscription “We are all sick of handball.” In the caption to the picture, she turned to critics and skeptics: “I continue to be sick with handball, and hello to everyone who said and wrote that the Baltic Star handball club is my PR project, which will be blown away in a year. Yes, “Baltic Star” is my PR project and a unique for Russia commercial marketing project that shows how to build professional clubs. And yes, we are moving forward as planned. We have seriously strengthened the squad, and all players are motivated for the highest result and the Super League.”

After a season this summer, the club is preparing to play in the Super League. Now the task is to take a place as high as possible and gain a foothold on it. Well, Irina has every right, like a year ago, to convey “hello” to critics and skeptics.

The balanced policy of Spartak

Basketball Spartak is different. He plays in the Russian Super League. And so far it does not set a goal to join the ranks of the top division – the Premier League. There will be a large entry fee to pay. Even the fee that the Superleague requires weighs on the club’s budget. And a more solid amount will punch a fatal hole in it.

“I don’t want Spartak to play in the Premier League just like that,” says club president Natalya Vodopyanova. – You have to come to this. Now the Premier League is not so oversaturated with clubs, we are called there, I will not hide it. And if they wanted to, they could get there – the leaders of the top division want to see a team from St. Petersburg there. It `s naturally. But for us now it makes no sense. We cannot afford to equip ourselves for this tournament or other expenses. And I don’t want to be whipping girls there.”

Talented graduates of St. Petersburg sports schools also play for Spartak. And this is the main thing that Vodopyanova managed to do, as she says, during the four years of her presidency.

The club began to trust. Previously, the girls simply traveled to other cities, knowing that in St. Petersburg there is no decent team and conditions for continuing their careers. Vodopyanova, who was born in St. Petersburg, dreamed that the roads from basketball schools would lead to Spartak, and now this process has been launched. The rest will depend on timing and proper management.

Fortunately, Natalia has a wealth of experience. She didn’t want to be a coach. Although Gelchinsky, who created the Wave, where Vodopyanova performed in the late 1990s, suggested. She says she would never have learned to swear like Gelya-Gelchinsky. But by nature, Natalia is a leader, she was the captain of the clubs. And look closely at how they manage.

She especially liked how it happened abroad. There are no organizational problems. The coach is responsible for the team, the doctor is responsible for the health of the players, and other people are responsible for the ammunition. No processes are mixed. In particular, this was the case when Vodopyanova played for the Seattle Storm team from the US Women’s National Basketball Association and in the Polish Lotus.

– In our conditions, some functions have to be combined. It is not right. Only in large clubs, where there is a wide coaching and administrative staff, there are enough specialists for everyone. I hope we get there too. As long as we manage on our own, Vodopyanova says.

She became the president of Spartak in 2018. Pulled the club out of debt, stabilized his life. Basketball traditions in St. Petersburg are much richer than handball ones. Still, it should not come to a complete collapse. Moreover, Vodopyanova, as a person with rich sports experience, understands what is needed for the development of those who defend the colors of the club.

Weather in the house

Interestingly, at one time the head coach of the women’s Spartak was Oleg Aktsipetrov, Vodopyanova’s husband, a former basketball player. But a couple of years ago he left this position. I asked the president of “Spartak”: “How did it happen”? She joked that there was too much basketball in the house. And intersections on this topic. In addition, Vodopyanova’s husband does not really recognize women’s basketball. What kind of dialogues on this basis arose in the home kitchen, one can only guess. Therefore, it was decided to separate responsibilities. The family has survived, nothing threatens her. It’s just that Oleg is now coaching another club, and Natalia is in charge of Spartak.

By the way, the husband of Irina Kuderova is also in business. Victor Kudryavtsev, a well-known former handball player who played for CSKA and Neva, who played in Germany, was appointed director of the Baltic Dawn as soon as the club was founded. So together they raised it. This, perhaps, is the little that makes Vodopyanova and Kuderov similar, apart from the presidency they hold.

I would like to wish women success in this difficult work. And for men to help them – both on the personal front and on the public one. Still, the presidency requires a kind of self-denial. And women, as you know, must be in time everywhere.