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
Madrid Conference of 1991 an opening forum for the participants and had no power to impose solutions or veto agreements. It inaugurated negotiations on both bilateral and multilateral tracks that also involved the international community. The Syrian and Lebanese negotiators agreed on a common strategy. It was the last conference held with both the USSR and US present; the USSR collapsed later that year in December 1991. The Madrid Conference was followed by two parallel tracks of negotiations. The bilateral track was aimed at achieving peace treaties between Israel and its three neighbor states Jordan, Lebanon and Syria as well as with the Palestinians.