MOSCOW (AP) -Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov’s bid for the New Jersey Nets may be a boon to the troubled U.S. basketball team, but in Russia some legislators and analysts say it’s a blow to the country’s sports.
“I can’t consider this action as anything other than unpatriotic,” Aslambek Aslakhanov, a member of the upper parliament chamber’s sports committee, said Thursday, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti. “We also have talented children here, but sports isn’t being developed. They’re not trying in order for us to return to our former sports ranking of best in the world.”
The collapse of the Soviet-era “Big Red Machine” that was a dominating force in Olympic Games has rankled many Russians, but the country’s sports prowess has surged in recent years with an array of top tennis players and this year’s victory in the World Ice Hockey Championships.
Read this article, “Russian’s bid for US team raises hackles at home“.
I don’t like it either. This is just the beginning. Now, you can expect other wealthy individuals to come to the United States and start buying out these sports franchises. Once you let one in, they all start to come in.
