{"id":4074,"date":"2016-02-22T09:01:46","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T17:01:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/bank-collapse-missing-official-disrupt-russian-sport\/"},"modified":"2016-02-22T09:01:46","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T17:01:46","slug":"bank-collapse-missing-official-disrupt-russian-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/bank-collapse-missing-official-disrupt-russian-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"Bank collapse, ‘missing’ official disrupt Russian sport"},"content":{"rendered":"

MOSCOW<\/strong> \u2014 A bank collapse and the apparent disappearance of a top sports official decorated by President Vladimir Putin have caused further disruption to Russian sport, already reeling from its doping scandal.<\/p>\n

The problems stem from the collapse of Vneshprombank, one of Russia\u2019s top 50 lenders, which was put into administration in December and had its license revoked a month later when the country\u2019s central bank said it had found signs of embezzlement.<\/p>\n

Among the bank\u2019s account holders was the Russian Olympic Committee, which denied reports in local media that it has been unable to pay coaches ahead of the Rio Olympics in Brazil, starting Aug. 5.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the obligations that we have are being fulfilled and will be fulfilled,\u201d ROC spokesman Konstantin Vybornov told The Associated Press on Saturday.<\/p>\n

In addition, the current whereabouts of International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation vice-president Georgy Bedzhamov are unclear. Bedzhamov is the brother of the president of Vneshprombank, Larisa Markus, who was arrested in December on suspicion of fraud, according to state-run news agency RIA Novosti. Bedzhamov has not been accused of any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

It is not clear whether the accusations against Markus are connected to central bank allegations that \u201cpersons exercising control over the bank\u201d had stripped its assets and spent the bank\u2019s money on real estate, shares and \u201cexpensive vehicles\u201d in Russia and abroad.<\/p>\n

As well as being vice-president for communications at the IBSF, Bedzhamov is the president of the Bobsleigh Federation of Russia, which has effectively been leaderless since December. \u201cThere continues to be no contact with the president of the federation,\u201d the BFR\u2019s secretary general Kirill Serikov confirmed to the AP on Saturday in comments sent by email.<\/p>\n

Bedzhamov, who did not respond to emailed requests for comment, was hailed two years ago as one of the heroes of Russia\u2019s medal table-topping performance at its home Winter Olympics, with Russian bobsledders winning two gold medals. After the games, he was given the Russian state\u2019s Order of Honor by Putin.<\/p>\n

The situation with Bedzhamov also complicates Russia\u2019s hosting of next year\u2019s world bobsled championships in Sochi, part of the city\u2019s Olympic legacy. The head of the IBSF, Ivo Ferriani, met with Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko earlier this month to discuss holding the championships without Russia\u2019s top official in the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cIBSF has no doubts that the IBSF bobsleigh and skeleton world championships 2017 in Sochi will be another great event organized by BFR,\u201d IBSF secretary general Heike Groesswang told the AP by email.<\/p>\n

The IBSF did not confirm whether it has had any contact with Bedzhamov in the last two months, but said he continued to hold office.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MOSCOW \u2014 A bank collapse and the apparent disappearance of a top sports<\/a> official decorated by President Vladimir Putin have caused further disruption to Russian sport, already reeling from its doping scandal. The problems stem from the collapse of Vneshprombank, one of Russia\u2019s top 50 lenders, which was put into administration in December and had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4074"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}