Information confrontations in the Russian football industry: the case of Alexei Matyunin

Dorskii Andrei Yur'evich ORCID: 0000-0002-0991-2941 Doctor of Philosophy Professor; Department of Mass Communications Management; St. Petersburg State University 7-9 Universitetskaya nab., Saint Petersburg, 199034, Russia dorski@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Dorskii Aleksandr Andreevich Senior Editor of the football department; "Sports.ru" LLC 9 Banny Lane, Moscow, 129110, Russia dorskiy-a@yandex.ru

Problem statement

The phrase "information confrontations" is in demand today by various branches of Russian science. According to the disserCat portal, as of April 30, 2024, for every 100 dissertations discovered by the query "information confrontations", 27 are in historical sciences, 23 in journalism, and 22 in political science (disserCat is an electronic library of dissertations // URL: https://clck.ru/3GLs47 ). At the same time, all dissertations on history are devoted specifically to political history: the information confrontations considered in them either precede or accompany an armed conflict. All journalistic studies in the sample are also devoted to political issues in one way or another in the traditional sense of the latter. Prominent examples are the dissertations of K. A. Namyatova "Russia and Russians in the media discourse of modern Italy", S. B. Nikonov "Noopolitik in the communication process of foreign policy activities of states", M. A. Sizmin "Media threats to Russia's national security and the means to eliminate them" and others. Thus, the term "information confrontations" is strongly connected in scientific discourse with political sciences.

At the same time, the phrases "information confrontations", "information conflicts" and, especially often, "information wars" are used not only by scientists, but also by practitioners in various fields. Conflicts between subjects of a very different nature in the development of mediated relationships create informational epiphenomena. Thus, there is a gap between the interest of researchers, focused mainly on the confrontations of states and political parties, and the practice of public relations.

At the same time, if rare studies are found for business as a whole and even for its individual branches ^[1]; ^[2], then neither Russian nor foreign works could be found for such a specific field as football. Meanwhile, information confrontations in football not only take place, but also can probably affect sports results. In the fundamental work of S. Cooper and S. Szymanski, which was published in 2009 and became a world bestseller, it was shown that the size of a club's salary list is the determining factor of its football success ^[3]. However, a joint study by V. V. Platonov, Doctor of Economics, and the famous football player D. A. Kuzyaev allows us to correct this conclusion, emphasizing the importance of intangible assets ^[4]. Thus, we have reason to assume that information confrontations can play a role in the development of football.

Background of the issue

In the vast majority of works devoted to information warfare, the basic concept is assumed to be intuitive and does not need a special definition. The problem of definition gets its coverage in the research of R. S. Vydets and K. A. Panzerev ^[5], D. P. Gavry ^[6], A. Demus ^[7], N. Kollars and M. Petersen ^[8], L. Yu. Medovkina ^[9], J. Cheravich ^[10], A. G. Shilina ^[11]. One of the authors of this article devoted a special work to the construction of the concept of "information confrontation", which, among other things, reviewed the available literature on the issue and proposed the author's definition ^[12]. Due to the discussion that arose after the publication, we will use a slightly adjusted definition in this study. By information confrontation, we will understand a type of confrontation in which opposing actors seek to transform the information environment of a neutral subject by communicative methods and mainly using mass media in order to attract him to one of the opposing sides or, at least, to preserve his neutral status.

We are considering information confrontations in the domestic football industry. The global football market is being actively explored. From the works of recent years, we will single out studies based on the analysis of big data and specific cases by T. Bason and B. Seno ^[13], H. Xu and co-authors ^[14], B. Marin and S. Lee ^[15], T. Sawyer and co-authors ^[16], S. Kosielek ^[17], Yapanas and co-authors ^[18], by A. Rincon and co-authors ^[19]. Russian football as an industry is also being scrutinized. One can name the works of V. A. Aleksunin and V. A. Baskakov ^[20], S. M. Ramazanov ^[21] and many others.

However, as already mentioned, information confrontations in the football industry have not yet been specifically investigated.

Research methods

For this article, we have chosen a case related to the name of football referee Alexei Matyunin. This case differs significantly from most other information confrontations known to us in that one of the parties to the confrontation is the country's football leadership. This is very rare in the national industry, and analyzing a specific case, we will try to find out the reasons for this situation.

On April 24, 2022, in the match of the Russian Premier League (RPL) Khimki - Krylia Sovetov, A.V. Matyunin made several controversial decisions in favor of the hosts, which directly affected the result (See, for example: "The referees kept Krylia in suspense. The rules are absurd, all the coaches talk about it among themselves." Osinkin on the deletions in the match with Khimki // Sports. April 24, 2022, 16.50. URL: clck.ru/3GLuGU ). After being accused of bias, A. Matyunin chose a retaliatory tactic: he did not explain the motives for his decisions, but pointed out the corruption of the accusers themselves (See, for example, Matyunin submits a complaint against Khachaturian to the RFU. The referee believes that the words of the RPL president after the Khimki — Krylia match influenced the decision of the ESC // Sports. April 28, 2022, 18.14. URL: clck.ru/3GLuWQ ). Judicial errors are not uncommon, but such behavior in the information field is unique. It can be assumed that A. Matyunin wanted to preserve an important resource that he possessed at that time — the ability to serve matches of the highest Russian division. It is possible that A. Matyunin wanted to increase this resource by acquiring the image of a fighter against corruption in the country's football leadership. The addressee of the messages in the framework of the confrontation should have been the general football community, but, above all, the heads of football clubs who have the resource to influence the RPL. The methods that A. Matyunin could use were only communicative.

We conducted a content analysis of publications on the "Matyunin case" in selected media. The surname "Matyunin" was chosen as the unit of content. The purpose of the analysis is to assess the success of the information confrontation, regardless of the success of the actions of the parties in the non—information field. Therefore, the objectives of the study were:

- comparison of the information presence of each of the parties;

- the accuracy of reporting the position of each side, which, in particular, was checked by the presence of direct speech;

- the ratio of positive, negative and neutral contexts of mentioning Matyunin;

- the source of the message, which could show the success of attracting supporters.

The study tested the hypothesis that success in information warfare can be a factor in increasing the effectiveness of a football industry entity. In relation to a specific case, we had to check whether A. Matyunin's initiation of an information confrontation with the leadership of the Russian Football Union (RFU) and the RPL was an effective strategy to preserve the status of a referee as a subject of the football industry, and whether the specific methods of information confrontation used by the parties were effective. Based on the general considerations expressed earlier, it can be assumed that confrontation with the leadership of sports federations is not an effective means of achieving their goals.

The unit of account was a separate material (article, note). The chronological framework of the study is set by the date of the match — April 24, 2022 and the time of termination of the trial of A. Matyunin with the online publication "Rating of Bookmakers" ("RB"), which covered the whole case — February 2023.

Since we were specifically interested in the success of the confrontation, that is, attracting stakeholders who had not formed a position before the start of the confrontation, information channels directly related to the subjects of the confrontation, for example, the RFU website, were excluded from the analysis. From other sources, the most popular online publication in Russia for 2022 was selected. Championat.com ("Championship") and the most quoted newspaper publication in the sports industry, "Sport-Express" ("SE") (Rodnikov V. Rating of domestic sports media // Sports. 07/19/2022. URL: clck.ru/3GQJEF ).

The research methodology has a number of limitations. First of all, they include the problem of evaluating mentions, since one's own assessment by a source or media is relatively rare. In addition, officials are usually bound by an official style in their statements, which involves minimizing the subjective assessment component. Therefore, it was necessary to take into account the various components of the material and take into account the possible reaction of the reader to them. So, we assessed as a negative the message about A. Matyunin's suspension from refereeing or the message about the absence of his name in the lists of referees submitted by the RFU to the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). At the same time, in both cases, we believed that these messages came from RFU officials, although there may not have been direct links to these individuals in the media. On the other hand, we assessed the statements coming from A. Matyunin as positive for A. Matyunin, although there was no explicit statement in them that A. Matyunin was a good judge.

Another problem with counting, oddly enough, is the number of mentions. Firstly, modern media regularly publish material, primarily interviews, several times — once in full, then giving cuts on individual issues in the news feed. Thus, one interview with the then president of the RPL, A. R. Khachaturyants, or the president of the RFU, A. V. Dyukov, generated several identical materials. We considered each such publication separately, since in each case the reader could encounter a specific statement again. Secondly, the media's links to their own materials published earlier on the same topic are the same generally accepted format. In the event that such links were organically included in the text of the new publication, we also counted such publications. If the links were given in a separate sidebar, they were not considered, as they did not form an independent material.

Material analysis

In total, 58 publications of "SE" and 29 publications of "Championship" were devoted to the "Matyunin case" during the year. The "SE" contained 34 negative publications, in 16 of them RFU and RPL officials were the source of information, in 18 — conditionally independent persons (investigating their connection with the leadership of Russian football was not part of our tasks). Neutral references were made 21 times, and officials, as a party to the confrontation, made statements 6 times that were neutral in both style and content. In a positive context, Matyunin's last name appeared only three times, two of which were the direct speech of Alexei Valeryevich himself. In the "Championship" there were 19 materials with a negative mention of A. Matyunin, of which 11 came from independent persons, and 8 from the other side of the confrontation. There were 4 neutral publications, and RFU and RPL officials expressed this opinion on the pages of the "Championship" 3 times. The number of positive mentions of Matyunin has a significant advantage over the number of similar mentions in "SE" — 6, of which the judge was given the floor twice.

Thus, A. Matyunin was unable to gain direct access to mass information channels. It is amazing how succinctly and meaninglessly his position is stated. The material of "SE" "Judge Matyunin filed a complaint with the RFU against the head of the Khachaturian RPL" contains 585 characters with spaces, of which only 172 characters are devoted to the complaint, including the direct speech of the judge himself: "I confirm that I have filed a complaint with the RFU against Ashot Khachaturian," the Championship quotes A. Matyunin (Judge Matyunin filed a complaint with the RFU against the head of the Khachaturian RPL // Sport-Express. May 3, 2022. URL: clck.ru/3GLue2 ). The second time, "SE" gave the floor to Alexei Valeryevich only nine months later. This time, the note includes 669 characters with spaces, of which half (335) is devoted to the context of the situation. In the "Championship", the referee's quotes also occur twice, both times regarding a complaint that he is going to file first, and then has already filed. The amount of information coincides with the stated "SE". A. Matyunin's position is reflected in the remarks of his main opponents, first of all, RPL President Ashot Khachaturian. Obviously, this side of the confrontation has significantly greater resources for communicating information to third parties.

A. Matyunin practically failed to attract allies to his side, despite the fact that they seem obvious. Already on April 24 (the day of the match), SE reported that Krylia Sovetov fans, Samara head coach Igor Osinkin, and even Samara Region Governor Dmitry Azarov were unhappy with the refereeing. Azarov promised the fans to do "everything to ensure that there is no such refereeing in our country" (The Governor of the Samara region: "We will do everything to ensure that there is no such refereeing in our country as in the Krylia-Khimki match" // Sport-Express. April 24, 2022. URL: clck.ru/3GLukE ). It wasn't until June 5 that the answer from Khimki coach Sergey Yuran came to SE: "I was reviewing the moments that caused all this fuss. In both penalty shootouts and the second yellow card, Matyunin made decisions after being prompted by VAR. After all, Resiuan Mirzov almost had his leg torn off. Isn't this a deletion? In my opinion, everything was logical. Therefore, I was a little surprised what happened to Matyunin later. But this is no longer in my competence" (Airapetov V., Lvov A. Sergey Yuran: "I have become more experienced, I really look at things. I could have handled the pressure at Spartak // Sport-Express. June 5, 2022. URL: clck.ru/3GLv37 ). At the same time, the game was played in Khimki, the hosts won — it would be natural to assume that the reaction of local fans and authorities was positive, but no less violent than the reaction of the Samaritans. However, it was not reflected on the pages of the publication. The other side of the confrontation turned out to be represented by RFU officials, including President Alexander Dyukov, and independent observers, such as former football player Roman Shirokov, and the "people" represented by the aforementioned Krylia fans.

A. Matyunin's lack of direct access to the media and allies leads to the fact that both media outlets give priority to negative publications about the referee: in "SE" they accounted for 53% of the total number of materials, in "Championship" — 58%. The percentage of positive publications turned out to be significantly different: in "SE" — only 5%, in "Championship" — 20%. An example with comments by Roman Teryushkov, a member of the Supervisory Board of Khimki, a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, is typical. SE submitted them in a neutral manner, accompanied by a negative reference to Matyunin's invitation to undergo a lie detector test (Kravchenko V. Roman Teryushkov spoke about his attitude to the use of a polygraph on RPL judges // Sport-Express. April 28, 2022. URL: clck.ru/3GLv5x ). The "Championship", for which the deputy became the main speaker defending A. Matyunin, presented other quotes, without even always providing them with reminders of suspicions about the referee.: "I'm on the judges' side here! They do their job faithfully. ... There are mistakes, yes, but only those who do nothing are not mistaken. It is unacceptable to use a polygraph to check judges. Who prevented the Wings of the Soviets from scoring four goals?" (Irha A. Teryushkov — about Matyunin: are our judges criminals to check on a polygraph? // Championat.com . May 6, 2022. URL: clck.ru/3GLvAW ). Based on these numbers, it is difficult to say that the "Championship" was striving for a more objective, balanced or neutral position — after all, there are even fewer neutral publications about the "Matyunin case" in it than there are positive ones. Emotional imbalance is probably part of the editorial board's information policy, which focuses on a slightly younger audience (Comparing demographic indicators of the audience // Similarweb. URL: clck.ru/3GQJJk).

If we trace the chronological order of publications, we can notice another important circumstance. On June 27, 2022, A. Khachaturyants resigned from the post of president of the RPL. By this point, it was already clear that a new contract for work at RPL matches would not be signed with A. Matyunin. (A little later, he will be deprived of the right to judge any football matches.) Only two months have passed since the conflict began. There were still ten dates remaining before the upper chronological limit of our study. During these ten months, SE published six negative materials about A. Matyunin, eight neutral and one positive, in which the judge was given the opportunity to utter not one, but three phrases. In other words, the tone of the publications has changed fundamentally. It was during this period that the disgraced referee received unexpected support from perhaps the most respected RPL referee, Sergey Karasev.: "The suspension of Matyunin, Eskov, Vilkov, Lapochkin? Experienced referees have played 100 matches each and suddenly disappear for some reason. ... In the very juice, a full-fledged combat unit, and something happened — it's a tragedy. ... It's even hard to find the words, because you start to miss yourself. .. To lose everything overnight is terrible" ("It's hard to find words, you start to miss yourself." Karasev — on the dismissal of judges // Championat.com . March 8, 2023. URL: clck.ru/3GLvJx ). The position of the RFU and the RPL regarding A. Matyunin's refereeing has not changed. But the resignation of a particular person from an administrative position, for whom the public fight against judicial corruption was one of the priorities of his activity — and this is how A. Khachaturyants positioned himself — led to a radical change in the information landscape.

The analysis does not mean that the decision to disqualify A. V. Matyunin for life is unjustified. We studied only the information confrontation, without considering the main content of the problem — the presence of bias in the actions of the judge. But in terms of the subject of our research, we see a direct dependence of the strength of information positions on the subject's place in the hierarchy of Russian football.

The results of the study

As mentioned above, A. V. Matyunin chose a defense tactic unique to Russia, going on the offensive and accusing the president of the Russian Federation of several violations of ethics and the law, including corruption. It cannot be unequivocally stated that the arbitrator embarked on a deliberately dead-end path. Summing up the results of the nine-month presidency of A. R. Khachaturian, "SE" noted, among other things, the official's conflict with A. Matyunin as proof of a media failure (Zimagulov V. What Khachaturian was remembered for in the RPL: he brought top contracts, allegedly promised a moratorium on departure, swore with Matyunin // Sport-Express. June 27, 2022. URL: clck.ru/3GLvMn ). That is, the statements of the football referee could theoretically become a loud information occasion that would find support. Instead, readers followed the passing of the lie detector test by the arbitrator himself. Thus, only on April 27, SE published eight materials about inviting judges to undergo a polygraph test, and only two about the arbitrator filing a complaint against A. Khachaturian on May 3. SE published only three notes on the trials of the ex-judge and the Bookmaker Rating in February 2023, and one of them was an interview with a lawyer representing the interests of RB, on the basis of which the most negative image of A. Matyunin was formed. Thus, the arbitrator failed to use the chosen method of information confrontation in principle: the media shifted the focus of attention to other events of the same story.

Thus, A. Matyunin was unable to use information warfare techniques to maintain his status in the football industry. Football federations have the necessary resource to mobilize supporters in the information space and demonstrate the "consolidated position of the entire industry." Despite the fact that after the end of the active phase of the confrontation, it turned out that a significant number of industry entities occupied a neutral position, the individual failed to attract them to his side.

Prospects for further research work

The further prospects of the study are determined by the limitations of the applied methodology. First of all, the identification of the specifics of football federations as subjects of information confrontations is associated with the expansion of the empirical base: other cases must be discovered and analyzed, no matter how small they may be. Secondly, we see the possibility of using additional methods that would help verify the results obtained during the conducted case studies and content analysis. In particular, a focused interview method can be used, in which respondents would be employees of federations, clubs, etc. Finally, in the future, it is planned to study other subjects of the football industry as parties to information conflicts.

Conclusions

The main conclusion that follows from the analysis of a specific case is that information confrontation with the federation is not an effective strategy.: the initial inequality of the capabilities of the subjects of potential confrontation affects. A subject at a lower level of the hierarchy has limited opportunities to effectively resist a superior. This also applies to the ability to apply information warfare methods, since, as a rule, a subject in a more privileged position has both the ability to use more communication channels and more developed skills in working with them.

The unpopularity of information confrontations with the governing bodies of football may be due to other reasons. Among them is a relatively clear distribution of competencies both between federations and between them and other entities. In particular, both domestically and internationally, the Russian Football Union, an all-Russian public organization, is considered the only organization that ensures control over the development of Russian football. Since 2002, the Russian Premier League Non-profit Partnership has been organizing the Russian Football Championship among the strongest teams. The rules of the championship are agreed upon by the general meeting of RPL members and approved by the RFU Executive Committee. A similar procedure exists for clubs in the lower divisions. That is, there is a strict hierarchy and delegation of authority from higher authorities to lower ones. In this situation, the possibility of a struggle for resources, which we consider the purpose of information confrontation, is minimized, although it is not completely excluded.

In addition, and it seems to us no less important, there is a very strong tradition in Russian sports of resolving controversial issues without attracting public attention. An example of this is the practice of sports arbitration. Article 46 of the RFU Charter states: "The RFU, its members, as well as leagues, clubs, players, officials, and other football entities that recognize this Charter, unless otherwise provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation, shall not submit any dispute to the state courts, and unless this is stipulated for specific cases in this Agreement. The Statutes and regulations of FIFA and UEFA. Any disagreement is referred to the jurisdiction of FIFA, UEFA or the RFU. As the last judicial instance, such disputes must be considered either in the National Arbitration Court specified in the relevant article of this Statute, or in the CAS" (Charter of the All-Russian Public Organization of the Russian Football Federation "Russian Football Union". Approved by the Founding Conference on February 08, 1992. Edition dated May 28, 2022 // Russian Football Union. All documents. URL: clck.ru/3GLvSr). The National Center for Sports Arbitration was established in Russia only in 2019, before that, all sports conflicts were resolved at the International Court of Sports in Lausanne. As of April 2024, that is, in the five years of its existence, the Center has made decisions in only seven cases (National Center for Sports Arbitration. The practice of arbitration. URL: clck.ru/3GLvWo ), the eighth is under consideration. It is characteristic that among these eight cases there is not one that would relate to football.

An indirect confirmation of this habit of resolving issues without attracting public attention is the story of the video assistant (judge VAR) Pavel Shadykhanov, who partially shared responsibility with Alexei Matyunin for the decisions made in the Khimki — Krylia Sovetov match. Pavel Andreevich followed the model of behavior adopted by the judicial community and did not participate in the information confrontation. He passed a polygraph test, served his disqualification and, unlike A. Matyunin, continued his work.

An important conclusion from the analysis is also that in information confrontations, the personalities of the participants are a significant factor: the withdrawal of A. Khachaturian from the confrontation sharply reduced the pressure on A. Matyunin's side, although it did not change the outcome. When studying information confrontations, it is necessary to keep in mind the importance of subjective factors, improvisations and individual characteristics.