By Artem Lyashanov
Youth sport is almost never self-sustaining. It rests on three sources of funding: the public purse, parental contributions and private money. In many countries, though, municipalities are cutting back on what they spend on local clubs, parental involvement builds inequality of access into the system, and business is reluctant to step in because it sees no obvious return.
In Ukraine, the same process simply happened faster and more sharply. State funding for sports infrastructure has been reduced to a minimum. The budget is working for the war effort, and children’s clubs have inevitably ended up at the back of the queue. The difficulty is that children who are ten today cannot wait this pause out — in five years they will be different people, whether or not the budgets have recovered.
That turns youth sport into an area where private capital is not supplementing the state but temporarily standing in for it. This is an unfamiliar role for business and treating it as charity is a mistake.
For several years now I have supported Pereloma Fight Academy, a martial arts club in the village of Khotiv outside Kyiv, where I serve as honorary president. When I first got involved, the club had no premises: sessions were held in what amounted to a home setting, and at peak times 47 children trained in 72 square metres, working through drills in shifts. Today the club has a properly equipped gym, seven disciplines — from grappling and jiu-jitsu to kickboxing — and a roster that includes world, European and Ukrainian champions. This season the team competes at the World Championship in Abu Dhabi and travels to tournaments in South Korea, the Czech Republic and the United States.
My work there comes down to strategy, partnerships and facilities — the same management job I do in business, minus any expectation of a financial return. A one-off cheque with a logo on a banner would not have produced this. A gym, a coaching team and international travel take several years of consistent work, not a single sum of money.
There is a business case here; it is simply a long one. The people we will be hiring in ten years’ time are growing up now. Sport gives them something formal education does not: the habit of sustained effort, the ability to lose without falling apart, an understanding that results take time to arrive. In hiring, those qualities are worth more than paper credentials — you can teach someone a profession, but you cannot teach character.
There is a simpler argument as well. A gym takes a child off the street and gives them an environment where their energy goes into something constructive.
Companies weighing up social projects should look for the ones where they can be present in person. Money covers part of the job, but a club, a school or a team needs someone who understands management and is prepared to spend time on it. That presence is what separates a project that runs for years from help that is forgotten after a season.
About the Author
Artem Lyashanov, fintech entrepreneur and investor, founder of a technical operator of payment systems.
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