Everything you didn’t know about BATE and probably want to keep it that way

By Tony Attwood

You know the joke about the Greek league and how Olympiacos have won it seven times in a row and ten times in the last 11 seasons (Panathinaikos getting in the way just once).

Well that’s nothing.  At least nothing when compared with Belarus.  Here’s their list of champions in recent years

Yes there is a certain pattern about this.  Through the 21st century BATE Borisov has dominated the league, winning eleven championships in a row, and becoming the first Belarusian team to reach the group stage of the Champions League (doing so four times between 2008 and 2015) and twice in the Europa League (2009 and 2010).

Their season runs through the calendar year, not the European football season, and in 2013 the league’s player of the year was Alexander Hleb.  A name with which to conjure.

Belarus has been ruled since 1994 by President Alexander Lukashenko the former director of the state farms and chair of the anti-corruption committee.  It is written (but I have not been able to check so am merely taking what I read) that “Opposition figures are subjected to harsh penalties for organising protests.” In 2005, Belarus was listed by the US as Europe’s only remaining “outpost of tyranny”.

Rather like BATE winning the league year after year so Alexander Lukashenko wins the election time after time – he won his fifth term as president in October 2015, but then no significant opposition candidate was allowed to stand.

Belarus has been criticised by organisations that consider the issues of human rights for suppressing free speech, censoring the press and denying the opposition access to the media, so if you are going you might want to double check the chants that are utilised. Reporters Without Borders placed Belarus 157th out of 180 countries in its 2015 World Press Freedom Index.

TV is the main news source in Belarussia and there are eight national channels.  Unfortunately they are all controlled by the state.  They take their news from the Russian networks, but then censor them in case anything unacceptable is said by those pesky Russians with their vibrant and open attitude towards personal liberty.

Corruption is, according what I can gather (and gathering is what I have been doing as I have not been personally in person to the country myself) present at all government levels in Belarus.   “While petty corruption is relatively limited, high level corruption occurs with impunity” according to the Belarus Corruption Report.  This is said to take in extortion, bribery and money laundering.

And yes it reaches football.  One top manager of Dynama, Uladzimir Berazhkou, spent eight months in prison before Lukashenka pardoned and released him after he re-paid $65,000 which was at the centre of a corruption dispute.   Despite this he then got the job of head of the Department of Marketing and Communication in the Belarusian Football Federation immediately after his release.  Sounds rather like Fifa.

The latest corruption scandal in the Belarusian Football Federation took place in January 2017, when head of the Judiciary Department Andrei Zhukau received five years imprisonment for bribery. The investigation revealed that between 2014 and 2016 he had been given $650 and a bottle of Cognac by referees and coaches as a reward for referee appointments on Belarusian football league matches.  Oh dear.

But this year something odd is happening.  This is the most recent league table I can find… Isloch Minsk have had seven points deducted and Naftan five.  I don’t know why.  But more to the point BATE might not win the league, although their recent results are rather good.

So it should all be rather jolly, as long as no one speaks out of turn.

• Arsenal Women v Birmingham, 23 September. The most satisfying of goals.
• Has the refereeing tied turned, or was it all a set of random events after all?