Sergey Shishkarev, President of the Russian Handball Federation, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Delo Group, took part in the Eastern Economic Forum that was held on September 5–8, during which Sergey Shishkarev spoke at the session Sport in the Far East: Creating new opportunities.
Sergey Shishkarev said that Russian business actively contributes to the development of both professional and mass sports in the regions. As an example, he mentioned Delo Group’s sponsorship of the Russian Handball Federation, revival of both men’s and women’s HBC CSKA, assistance to Krasnodar’s HBC Kuban, creation of WHBC Chernomorochka in Novorossiysk.
Sergey Shishkarev drew attention to the creation and operation of sports ecosystems under a single club brand, thanking the management of Gazprom for becoming a sponsor of HBC Neva in St. Petersburg. Starting from the next season, HBC Neva will join the Zenit framework and will be competing under the Zenit name.
The head of the Russian Handball Federation also mentioned that Delo Group, both independently and in partnership with other Russian companies, builds multi-sport facilities for mass sports in the regions where it operates. Such facilities have been built, are being built and are planned to built in the Sakhalin Region, Primorsky and Trans-Baikal Territories. In October, Delo Group, together with SIBUR, will launch a pilot project for the construction of public sports infrastructure facilities in the Republic of Tatarstan.
Speaking about handball, Sergey Shishkarev noted that, despite all attempts to remove Russia from international sports life, our country continues to take an active part in it. For example, Russian and Belarusian teams will compete in the Eastern Division of the SEHA – Gazprom League. The final match of the tournament is scheduled to take place in 2023 in St. Petersburg. As part of the Memorandum of Cooperation between the Russian Handball Federation and the Chinese Handball Association, the men’s and women’s national teams of China began training in Russia in April. Chinese Phoenix will play in the Women’s OLIMPBET Super League.
“We are giving Chinese athletes the opportunity to train in Moscow under the Russian coaching staff and to compete against Russian teams within our national championship. We want to help our partners win the handball tournament at the Asian Games and qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. It’s a coin toss whether we will go there ourselves, but I don’t want to talk about politics now, fair sport and fair performance are what’s important to us,” Sergey Shishkarev said.
The head of the Russian Handball Federation emphasized that such cooperation could be an important step towards the creation of the Far Eastern Handball League, which would welcome teams from China, Japan, South Korea and regions of Russia.
Sergey Shishkarev also emphasized the ongoing official contacts with the leaders of the world handball movement. At the invitation of President of the International Handball Federation Hassan Moustafa and President of the European Handball Federation Michael Wiederer, Sergey Shishkarev will take part in the EHF conference in Luxembourg in September and in the events of the World Men’s Handball Championship in early 2023.
“The attempt to completely isolate Russian handball from the international agenda has failed. I promise to properly represent Russia at all these sports forums,” the President of the Russian Handball Federation concluded.