On February 28, at the conference of the Kazakhstan Football Federation (KFF), elections of the president of the organization are to be held. One of the registered candidates is Berik Kaniev, a member of the KFF Executive Committee and head of the youth football center "Zhas-Kyran". In an interview with a bbabo.net correspondent, the businessman spoke about theses of his program, the problems of Kazakhstani football and solutions to eradicate corruption and improve infrastructure.

- Berik Seralievich, do you have a developed football development program that you could present before the KFF presidential elections?

- This week, namely on Wednesday, February 16, we will hold a press conference where we will present our program, and you will get acquainted with theses. In short, the mission of my program is "Football to the people of Kazakhstan." That is, our goal is to make football popular, massive and, as a result, bbabo.net our football in the top FIFA rankings. We want to build the right pyramid of grassroots football, youth, football centers, professional clubs and leagues.

You know that the development of football is my forte, because I have been doing this for more than 20 years.

Earlier, together with Pavel Maksimovich Novikov, we helped to renovate the CSKA stadium. In addition, we created the Velvet club, organized a youth football league, and created other leagues aimed at developing youth football. In particular, the league "Zhas-Kyran" covered 35 thousand children, all regions and settlements played.

Our brainchild is the Zhas-Kyran football center, where we are especially focused on the development of children, coaches, and the education of the future generation. Our main message is the health of our nation. We do not know if the child will become a footballer or not, but we want the child to grow up as a healthy person.

In addition to the development of children's and grassroots football, we want a complete revision of the entire infrastructure in the country by bbabo.net. We also need to work closely with regional federations, unfortunately, in this part today there are non-systemic things, everything must be put into one concept.

- You have created your own small football world, but do you have any idea how, being the head of the KFF, to transfer this model already within the framework of the whole country?

- I perfectly understand how to transfer it and how it will function. We need to work with lawmaking, we need to look at programs that can allow us to build stadiums like Zhas-Kyran.

We already have football centers at the clubs, but we need to increase and improve the work with teams that are preparing children who can go to these centers in the future. That is, we want to create a wider coverage of children. From clubs like "Zhas-Kyran" children should already move into teams of masters.

How to build it? We need the right motivational programs for children's and youth schools, private schools, so that they start working on infrastructure. My wish is that about 30-40 schools similar to "Zhas-Kyran", with similar principles, function in the country. Then it will be a very big selection and a powerful boost for football centers.

- You mentioned 30-40 clubs similar to Zhas-Kyran. Should they be created through private inbbabo.net or UEFA?

- I said about motivational programs - this is for investors. This should be the right PPP (public-private partnership). "Zhas-Kyran" was also created on the basis of PPP, but here I invested just as a philanthropist, it did not matter to me how much the state would cover.

There must be a correct development strategy between the central federation and the regional ones. Then we would all participate in the process, we would monitor each region, then there would be an understanding of what opportunities local akimats and professional football clubs have.

Yes, a certain part of the club's budget should go to the infrastructure and development of regional programs - this is very important. Since now we see that many clubs have become carried away only within the Premier League, few people are interested in regional development.

We need to put systematic work in this regard. I believe that regardless of state and private participation, everything depends on people, on the right vision. If we correctly decompose KPI (Key Performance Indicators), we can build this process. This is hard, fruitful work, but I am no stranger, I know that a lot depends on the people, managers, on whom we will focus.

- In short, what are the three main problems in Kazakhstani football?

- First, youth football - it needs a lot of attention. Second, there are problems in the personnel training system, to create the right training centers for coaches. Third, weak infrastructure.

I would also add - everything must be made transparent. All budgets must be transparent.Is it real? A small example from RFMS. (Kaniev is the chairman of the board of directors and a member of the board of trustees of NJSC "RFMS"). Digitized all the processes that are in the school. Now, when a child takes a school entrance exam, they are given a code and the exam is published the next day. Recently, a stranger told me that his child entered the sixth time. This proves that without any calls, any child, if desired, can enter.

- Many candidates say that Kazakhstani football should smoothly move away from state funding. Do you agree with this, and if so, how can this be implemented?

- Over time - yes, it is possible. But at the first stages, we must try to make efficient and transparent spending of (public) funds. Now I think a lot about this topic. On the example of our team "Zhas-Kyran", playing in the second league, I always say: work with sponsors, try to get paid off. It is clear that I additionally finance, but our budget is transparent, we are efficient. Almost every month we have a budget committee, we discuss all the details.

At first, state support will be needed, but if the state gives us, we must be responsible for every penny. But in the long run, we should probably come to a point where government funding is reduced.

But right now we are not ready economically and functionally, many clubs will not be able to survive. In the future, we need to redistribute funds, state money must be invested in the infrastructure and development of youth and mass sports, and clubs must be as independent of the budget as possible.

- How to attract private inbbabo.net in football?

- As I said earlier, we need an attractive program for investors: through the right PPP program, ensuring transparency, providing preferences.

I have many friends. If the amounts are lifting, it seems to me that many are able to come in and become interested. But if this money is spent senselessly, then we, of course, will not be able to attract anyone to such football.

- You reconstructed the stadium, built other infrastructure facilities for Zhas-Kyran, how much did you spend on it in the end?

- I never like to talk about money, because I did it for our children.

- You have been a member of the KFF executive committee for a long time and, most likely, you know how internal processes take place. Why do you think the work of the federation has been so criticized in recent years, why from the strategy "Forward, football! Alga, Qazaqstan!" How much remains on paper?

- I was a member of the Executive Committee for youth football. Speaking within the framework of our committee (KFF youth football), there were a lot of competitions, leagues.

I repeat, when there is a strong connection between the main federation and the regional ones, then everything is feasible. It seems to me that it was in this part that the mechanism did not work quite smoothly.

You can talk a lot about the program, but it takes three months to write it, implementation is more important here, the right people are needed. Everything depends on the team. I do not believe that any program can be carried out one hundred percent, but for its maximum implementation, people and the right contact between them are needed.

- How unexpected was the fact that Olzhas Abraev and Adilbek Dzhaksybekov withdrew from the elections after the registration of candidates?

- When any electoral process is going on, this is a normal phenomenon. Everyone understands for himself in the process, whether he wants to or not, whether he is ready for this responsibility and tasks.

The fact is that today people have ceased to endure and immediately demand results. So I can already say now, no results should be expected at first. It seems to me that it is already good that there is electivity - this is a very good trend.

- At what point did you personally decide for yourself that you would run for president of the KFF?

- Becoming the head of the KFF is a big responsibility. I realized for myself that if I support Kazakhstani football, I should try to do more than Zhas-Kyran. It became a motivation. No matter how loud it sounds, but why not try to do good for our state. My family also supported me in this matter. The Federation is not a business for me, I can officially declare that I will give up my salary at the KFF and make every effort to develop Kazakhstani football.

- What do you think, is it worth inviting foreign coaches to work in the same academies and centers?- The exchange of opinions is very important. Conferences, seminars are needed. Many of us think that after watching two videos on Youtube, they are already coaches, but this is not so. Even I go to school every year, update my knowledge, see what new technologies appear. And I always make our school directors travel, whether it's Skolkovo or Cambridge. We must always be within the framework of all advanced technologies. We need to create a national training center for our coaches and invite highly qualified foreign specialists to visit us. We have many young, promising coaches, they are fans of football, they need this knowledge.

- You have a positive reputation in the football environment, you are a philanthropist, you support your club. But work in the KFF is a risk, for example, even any negative result of the national team is always accompanied by criticism of the federation, are you ready for such pressure?

- If this is the right criticism, why not? I always tell my employees that healthy criticism is normal, I don’t even like it when they say that everything is fine. What is my practice, I was criticized, I say, then you lead this direction, help me, do not sit on the couch. But now the tendency is to criticize indiscriminately. Unfortunately, in the football world there are such dirty, football-related conversations that have nothing to do with sports at all. If you have any question, you can ask it, we have a press service, I'm open. What is important now is not the split, but the consolidation of society.

In conclusion, I want to say, whoever wins these elections, I wish success and fruitful work to everyone. If I don't win the elections, I'm still ready to help the KFF, football is our common cause.

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