The anti-corruption service of Shymkent has drawn attention to the excessive spending of FC "Ordabasy" on the salaries of foreign players, who earned nearly 2 million tenge per month.
For instance, the club's budget for 2024, considering all expenses, amounts to 1 billion 200 million tenge. All expenditures were approved by the club's management without the involvement of the Board of Directors.
Alexey Koloskov, the first deputy head of the Anti-Corruption Agency in Shymkent, stated that when requesting budgetary funds, the authorized body does not verify the data, raising legitimate questions. Additionally, this year, the sports management and the club entered into contracts totaling five times the funding requirements.
It has been noted that out of 22.7 billion tenge spent on FC "Ordabasy" over the past five years, only 2.5 billion tenge, or 11%, has been allocated to grassroots football, while the majority of the funds went towards salaries, primarily for foreign players. It is also important to recall that the multi-billion debt of FC "Ordabasy" was covered at the beginning of this year using budgetary funds.
In light of these club issues and justified public outrage, it has been proposed to change the structure and status of the club. Authorities aim to convert it into a municipal enterprise to regulate salaries and other club expenses. It has already been revealed that the club's budget for 2025 will be cut by three times, and it will now be headed by Moldovan coach Andrei Martin.
In this context, the akimat clarified:
“The issue of revising the legal organizational form of FC 'Ordabasy' from a joint-stock company to a municipal legal entity (KGU, GKP, GKP on a PPP basis) is under consideration. This will allow for the establishment of maximum salaries for employees of the enterprise (in accordance with government resolution No. 1193 dated December 31, 2015, 'On the salary system for civil servants'), which will ensure clearer regulation of wages and improve the financial transparency of the organization.”