Football in Russia Football in Russia Association football is the most popular sport in Russia, beating ice hockey by a huge margin. When the USSR broke up into 15 different countries, the once renowned sports structure of the union collapsed. Football was the second most popular sport in the Soviet Union. While the national teams and the clubs used to be linked to state institutions or mass organizations, in 1991 some of them became private enterprises. Just like in many other spheres of business, corrupt and sometimes bloody division of power began. Furthermore, many teams of the erstwhile Soviet Top League, which was
Unified Sports Classification System of the USSR and Russia sports ranks and titles, for all sports, cultivated in the USSR. As of the 1970s, there were following ranks for athletes of the USSR (listed in descending order of value): Each of these titles was awarded only for results on the official competitions. Athletes who qualified for the rank were awarded a badge with serial number. This system was popular among Soviet satellite states and was used in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland, and Romania until the breakup of the USSR in 1991. Russia continued the system, and former Soviet republics Belarus, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan also