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
Treaty on the Creation of the USSR Treaty on the Creation of the USSR The Treaty on the Creation of the USSR officially created the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union. It "de jure" legalised a union of several Soviet republics that had existed since 1919 and created a new centralised federal government (Congress of Soviets of the Soviet Union and Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union (TsIK) were the legislative while Council of People's Commissars was the executive) where key functions were centralised in Moscow. The Treaty along with the Declaration of the Creation of the USSR was approved