Matytsin discussed with the Iranian Ambassador a friendly match between Zenit and Sepahan

The topic of the conversation was the expansion of cooperation between countries in the field of physical culture

On October 26, Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Oleg Matytsin held a working meeting with Kazem Jalali, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Russia, at which he discussed the development of cooperation in the field of physical culture and sports.

“One of the aspects of cooperation in the field of football is the cooperation between the St. Petersburg Zenit and the Iranian Sepahan. With the support of the Ministry of Sports, a Memorandum of Cooperation between the clubs was signed, a productive dialogue has been established, and there is an active exchange of teams to participate in tournaments. Now Iranian trainers are being trained on the basis of the Center for Advanced Studies. An important event should be the meeting between Zenit and Sepahan, which is scheduled in Iran on November 27, ”the website of the Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation quotes the minister as saying.

Currently, Russia and Iran have developed a draft bilateral “Action Plan for the development of cooperation in the field of physical culture and sports for 2022-2024”. The plan provides for the exchange of experience in 11 sports (athletics, weightlifting, sambo, fencing, football, badminton, boxing, judo, wrestling, taekwondo, artistic gymnastics), as well as in the field of the Paralympic movement. “I am convinced that the implementation of the bilateral plan will make a significant contribution to the further development of Russian-Iranian sports relations,” Oleg Matytsin emphasized.

Matytsin also thanked his Iranian colleagues for supporting Russia’s position on the inadmissibility of the politicization of sports and discrimination against our athletes.

In addition, Oleg Matytsin invited Iranian student teams to take part in the first International University Sports Festival, which will be held in August 2023 in Yekaterinburg, as well as in the innovative international tournament “Games of the Future” in modern phygital disciplines, which will be held in March 2024 in Kazan .

On September 5, 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed Decree No. 611, which approved the “Concept of the Humanitarian Policy of the Russian Federation Abroad”. In the 30-page document, great attention was paid to cooperation in the field of sports. In particular, it says that: “… an important place in the development of relations with the states of the Middle East, Africa and Latin America is occupied by cultural and educational exchanges, the expansion of the practice of training foreign specialists according to Russian educational standards, cooperation in the field of sports, especially in the part concerning the exchange of experience in holding major sporting events, countering the politicization of sports”.