Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Vladimir Putin: Again, good afternoon.

I am very pleased to be able to offer you my congratulations on this momentous event. The first edition of your newspaper went to press 85 years ago. In those days it was called Red Sport. At that time, in 1924, that title clearly reflected the ideology, and had ideological overtones. But as we all know, the word "red" in the Russian language originally meant beautiful, so the name was chosen successfully.

Although Soviet Sport has already become a brand, it is an authoritative publication, known nationwide. It does not just provide a news bulletin, it does not just provide information, it is a public platform for sportsmen, for fans and for everyone who loves sport. It has been many things in its time, but today it is clearly a very modern publication. And here I am referring not just to the paper itself, but the online edition as well. I do not recall exactly now how many readers you have, how many subscribers, but you clearly reach a very large audience.

And that is the most fundamental, intrinsic and visible proof of what an effect your work and professionalism have. It is not enough simply to cover sporting competitions or sporting achievements. When it comes to victory, then it needs to be written about in a way that is worthy of the achievement. And when it comes to failure, then, it should be rendered as an analysis, as constructive criticism, which doesn't devastate the losers, but which, on the contrary, helps them to gather their strength, recover, and win next time.

I think your newspaper performs a vital role today, not just in reporting information about sport, but also in educating young people, and society as a whole, about tolerance and about relations between different ethnic and national groups within our society. Because sport is an absolutely international activity. Here, support for people from the most diverse ethnic groups, the most varied nationalities and cultures, for after all ours is a multi-cultural country, is very important. Education about this is extremely important.

Not to mention current problems in sport per se. Here I am referring primarily to the problem of fighting the use of performance enhancing drugs, and the overall promotion of a healthy lifestyle, the need to cultivate the correct attitude to a healthy lifestyle. This is very, very important.

As for the information you provide, it is diverse and all encompassing, but most importantly, it is timely. I should add that this does not apply to Soviet Sport alone, but to the media as a whole. I myself enjoy watching media coverage, and get very useful information from reading the press coverage of what is happening in this sphere and about the situation at individual clubs.

One of my next meetings will be with the leadership of the Tom football club. I first found out that the club is experiencing particular financial difficulties through the media. That is why I instructed my colleagues to think about what we can do to support this club: find sponsors and reach an agreement with them regarding support for the team. But this is just one case. All in all, the function that your paper performs is very, very important.

I really count on your support in the resolution of another, no less significant, problem, one that has nationwide implications. Here I mean our bid for Russia to host the 2018 football World Cup.

You probably already know that the critical decision to submit the bid has been made but that now we must agree on how we will in practice move this bid forward. It cannot become a reality without the key component, and that most vital element is the popular desire in the country, among the fans, to see this event, which is the largest international sporting competition, held in Russia.

We won the right to host the Winter Olympic Games in this country in 2014, and that will entail the development of sport, the promotion of a healthy lifestyle and the popularisation of sport.

In this regard, the opportunity to host the 2018 world championship is no less important. It is no less important primarily because it allows us to take another step forward in developing our sports infrastructure. The cities that could host this competition are Moscow, St Petersburg, a city in the Moscow Region, Kazan, Sochi, Samara, Yaroslavl, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Krasnodar, Volgograd, Saransk, Yekaterinburg, and Kaliningrad.

It is clear that this entails the development of our sports infrastructure, the construction of additional stadiums, and that it also means the development of the transport and communications infrastructure, hotels and everything related to providing services to a large number of people. But what is most important is that this would establish the foundations on which sports could be developed across the Russian Federation, for millions of our fellow citizens for a long time to come. And we will of course retain all that, after the event.

Also, as in the case of the 2014 Olympics, we have set ourselves the task of winning, but it will not be a tragedy if the decision goes against us, which is also entirely possible. As in sport - we must strive for victory, but not make a tragedy out of the situation if we do not achieve the aim we set ourselves. Never mind, it just means we will achieve it next time. And we will continue to strive for that.

I would like to congratulate you once again, and wish you all great creative success. Thank you very much for your attention.

Igor Kots: We will start with the second question. Alexander Zilbert, deputy editor in chief.

Alexander Zilbert: Mr Putin, you mentioned our winning Sochi bid. I have a question in that regard.

First, it is not without pride that I would like to say that the first media report about the idea of holding the Olympic Games in Sochi was made by Soviet Sport itself. Also it is not without pride that I would like to say that we followed the progress of that bid from the beginning right to the victorious end.

I would even like to admit something: Two years ago in July, I outwitted your security guards, found my way to the sixth floor of the Intercontinental Hotel and saw for myself what massive diplomatic efforts our entire Sochi bid team made in order to deliver this Olympics into our hands.

I would really like all these efforts not to have been in vain, and that is why I am asking this question. Now, since the construction phase has not started, it is very difficult for journalists and everybody else to determine whether everything is going to deadline. The builders say it is all fine. Our IOC monitors also confirm that all is going to plan.

Do you have any concerns on this account? What is your opinion?

Vladimir Putin: I find it difficult to agree with one phrase that you used. You referred to our IOC inspectors. We of course feel a great deal of affection for them, but so far at least, they are in no sense ours. They are independent experts and observers, they are absolutely neutral and they are nothing if not interested in seeing a positive outcome. That is understood, since they need to hold the Olympic Games.

And, speaking candidly, I am to a great extent guided by their opinion. I meet with them regularly, formally and informally.

And today it is clear that the online system for tracking the progress of all aspects of making the Olympic project happen, is up and running. And it shows that we are entirely, absolutely, on schedule. There are not currently any grounds to fear that we will fall behind schedule in any area. Moreover we are even ahead of schedule in a variety of areas. So, when it comes to these schedules, I have no doubt that we will meet the deadlines.

There is something else that worries me: the costs and bureaucracy that create a variety of related problems. But we are also working rather actively on both these issues. I hope that we will also get to grips with these problems.

As with any project of this scale, there are all kinds of hangers-on who want to get in on the action. The prosecutors have put the necessary measures in place, and the law enforcement agencies are working consistently and rigorously. I hope that they will continue their work in the future.

Thank you.

Igor Kots: You mentioned the problem of performance enhancing drugs. A question now from Ruslan Karmanov, editor of the sports competitions section.

Ruslan Karmanov: Mr Putin, the recent doping scandals involving our track and field athletes, and biathletes confront us with the need to find an integrated solution to this problem. That means involving our doctors, sporting leaders, and possibly, using the law. In your opinion, would criminalising doping help sport recover?

Vladimir Putin: You know, I will answer you as any lawyer would no doubt answer. I will only speak about the situation in general. Increasing the penalties after a certain point ceases to be an effective way of combating any offense. What we need here is integrated measures.

I am not currently prepared to say whether or not in this case there is a need for tougher measures, and for it to be made a criminal offence. But it is absolutely clear that we do need to continue fighting this. And I repeat again that we should take an integrated approach that includes organisational, legal, education, administrative, and medical measures. That is obvious.

This should involve the use of modern technology, we should not lag behind leading countries on the technological front. But the most important aspect is that we must care about the health of our sportsmen. And that is what all measures we take should be focused on. Only once we have formulated our approach, will we be able to analyse the situation, and decide whether or not we need to toughen, to strengthen the liability or not.

Only then will we be able to answer your question about whether criminal liability is required.

Igor Kots: Thank you. The editor of the weekly Soviet Sport - Football Sergei Yemelyanov.

Sergei Yemelyanov: I have a question in the run up to your next visit, the one you mentioned earlier. A discussion is underway in football in this country about whether or not Governors should support football clubs, or whether they should remain private. What is your opinion on this?

Vladimir Putin: Just as in the economy as a whole there is the question whether we need to nationalise everything or not. I think not. But sport, any sporting activity, carries a significant social component.

Clearly local and regional authorities should support football clubs, the only question is what form that support is to take: Whether there should be a direct allocation from the budget, or whether a business should be organised on a regional level, and whether legislation should be streamlined to give the clubs the right to have their own funds and effective sponsors. And those sponsors should not simply be a source of cash for the club; laws and the administrative system should allow those clubs and their sponsors to work efficiently within the law, to develop their own foundations and also to generate the income necessary for their sporting activities to develop, which is, after all what those clubs were set up to do in the first place. That is the priority. But at some point, in certain conditions, I admit, budget support is entirely possible.

Igor Kots: One of the most difficult questions falls to me. Not long ago the football community was having a very heated discussion about the match between Terek and Krylya Sovetov in Grozny.

And many incline towards the view that the match lacked a sporting spirit. In particular, our newspaper - and Mr Mutko (Minister of Sport) supported us in this - saying he felt uncomfortable about the way Samara played. What should we do now? Neither the Russian Football Union nor the paper will ever be able to prove collusion.

We went to Italy for help from the law enforcement agencies, and it proved to be a textbook case: The team was disqualified from the tournament. In your opinion, is it possible to triumph over this evil, which really does exist, and resolve the issue without involving the law enforcement agencies?

Vladimir Putin: I think that this question should be resolved first and foremost by the sporting organisations themselves, the Football Union, and the community. But I would not rule out involving the law enforcement agencies. Indeed, on occasion it is difficult to prove collusion, but it must be proved. It must not descend into such a state where people simply act unpunished and in their own mercenary interests.

Igor Kots: Thank you. And a question about tennis, Alexander.

Vladimir Putin: Go ahead.

Аlexander Zilbert: I would like to interrupt this football talk, Mr Putin. You might not agree with me, but I think that, judging by the results, if you add up the prestige our country gets from our victories, then our number one sport is tennis. I had a look at the statistics specially in preparing this. Last year Russians won 443 international tournaments. This means that the Russian national anthem was played somewhere abroad every week.

And it is already clear that this year we are seeing a deterioration on those results. Both the men's and women's teams lost. The men's team have already moved from first to third place. And this is not an accident, it is a dismal tendency which results from the lack of physical infrastructure in tennis.

It is becoming absurd. Svetlana Kuznetsova, who not long ago won the Roland Garros French Open, last year decided to move from Spain to Moscow, so she could live and work in her homeland. But she admitted to me that we do not have adequate training facilities. Even just for that one sportswoman.

Because our courts cost $70 at prime time, while in Switzerland they cost $40. And now we could again see our entire young talented generation of sportsmen train in the West. It is possible that they will be persuaded to take on a different citizenship. We can lose an entire generation.

In this regard, and we have written about this many times, and I think that Mr Mutko is well aware of it, the Russian Tennis Federation has an action plan on this. True, it is an expensive one, but tennis is an expensive kind of sport. It needs $45 million annually to put it into action. That pales alongside the American figures, where $225 million are spent on tennis annually, or in France, where the sum is over $200 million, or India where about $1 billion is spent.

But the question now is whether despite the crisis there is an opportunity to help Russian tennis? I fear that if we do not help it, we will find ourselves in the difficult position of having a lost generation.

Vladimir Putin: You know at the start I said that if we're talking about victory then we need to talk about it in a way that does it justice. When we lose we need to analyse why - in a constructive way, so that the sportsmen are able to gather their forces, recover and win. I think that it is the same in tennis.

Firstly, it is difficult to maintain our position constantly, in any sport. And this also relates to tennis.
Secondly, we do not only distinguish ourselves in tennis. Take football, something we spoke so much about at the beginning, there the Russian Federation is ranked sixth by FIFA. Overall, that is in fact not a bad showing. In recent years our clubs have won European cups three times: also not a bad performance. It never used to be like that. When was it like that? Almost never before.

As for tennis, we need to get together with the Russian tennis team captain Mr Ruslan Tarpishchev, and other managers in this sport, and think about this. Of course there could be a degree of state support. But it is nonetheless a very commercial sport.

You said that court rent in Switzerland is 40 euros and here it is 70. But other aspects of life are more expensive in Switzerland. Switzerland is an expensive country, one of the most expensive countries in the world, that's what its famous for. That is why they are not very afraid of extending the Schengen, because life is expensive there, rich people live there. But help is possible, it needs to be considered.

You know, for many years as President and now as Prime Minister, I have become keenly aware of the fact that as soon as you start helping one sector, then questions are raised about others, and you always have to weigh up your options. And that's what we must do in these circumstances.

Igor Kots: Thank you. The next question is from our columnist Yury Sevidov, an outstanding football player and the best forward of the 1962 USSR championships. He is ill now, so Roman Vagin, the deputy editor-in-chief of Soviet Sport-Football, will ask his question for him.

Roman Vagin: Mr Putin, let us return to football after our digression to tennis.

Vladimir Putin: It was only an attempt at digression.

Roman Vagin: Football is the principal sport, so we are getting back to it. Mr Sevidov wanted to ask about the National Cup. Fans are uneasy about it.

Its prestige has decreased badly. The television does not cast National Cup matches, and Premier League teams do not send their best players to them. Just compare the tournament with its Spanish analogue. The best players compete there, the stadiums are full, and the tournament is known as Royal Cup. The King gives the prize to the winner after the final match. It is really an outstanding event. Here in Russia we have nothing of the kind. Russia Cup gets more obscure with every passing year.

How can we address this problem? Would you sponsor it? Then, it might change its name to Prime Minister Cup. Why not?

Igor Kots: That is Mr Sevidov's idea.

Vladimir Putin: I am afraid I have to disappoint you here-I cannot answer this question before we all take stock of the problem together.

Roman Vagin: Together with Mr Sevidov, too.

Vladimir Putin: All together. We should ask the Football Union's and fans' advice. We can do everything. Why not establish the President's Cup if Mr Medvedev approves the idea? Prime Minister Cup would be fine, too. But none of that is enough. We need to look at many other aspects and develop an all-round approach. After all, one can cook a fine broth out of mere splinters if one adds a kilo of meat.

Roman Vagin: Russia Cup could be really good.

Vladimir Putin: Let us think about it together.

Roman Vagin: Thank you.

Igor Kots: Vyacheslav Panin, the hockey department editor, is coming up with another digression.

Vyacheslav Panin: Mr Putin, when you visited Yaroslavl in October 2006, you approved the idea of a European Hockey League. It appeared something of a castle in the air at the time.

However, we have a formidable Continental Hockey League now. It needed just one year to get into the forefront of Russian sport. What do you think about it? Has the league achieved everything planned two or three years ago? And what would you wish it?

Vladimir Putin: Let me share a secret with you: I did not just support the idea, it was, in fact, my own invention. There was an honourable competition between North American and Soviet hockey. The game lost its spice when it was gone. World championships are interesting, more or less, and other games are rather inferior. True, it is exciting to see Russian players in the NHL. I am proud of them-but all the same, today's hockey is rather insipid.

National teams competing at world championships are quite different. So it occurred to me to restart European-North American competition on a new basis and so give world hockey a new lease of life.

That was why I said it was worthwhile to ponder over the idea of the Continental Hockey League.

It would be good if the league represented entire Europe. Why should not Sweden, the Czech Republic or Slovakia join it, with their excellent teams? Switzerland also has good teams. Then, it would make a full-fledged European Hockey League, immune to our political impact and red tape.

Some of our partners are interested in the idea. Money is the only obstacle. If we find the funds, hockey will be invigorated worldwide, and public enthusiasm for it will be reborn.

On the whole, the project is developing rather well. Mr Alexander Medvedev has been doing a great deal for it. I thank everyone who was initially opposed to it but grew to appreciate it eventually, was able to negotiate and made relevant decisions.

I cannot judge what is going on because I don't know every detail-but I think the situation is not bad. As for my vision, I have told you about it.

Vyacheslav Panin: When, do you think, will proper all-European championships start?

Vladimir Putin: I am not sure. I know when the budget will be adopted but not about the future of European championships.

Igor Kots: Now a question from Anton Glebov, our Internet project editor.

Anton Glebov: If I may, I would like to get back to football, Mr Putin. The Russian team will play one of the year's key matches in October, against Germany at the Luzhniki stadium. Will you attend?

Vladimir Putin: I hope I will manage. I cannot be sure about my October schedule but I am certainly eager to see it.

Igor Kots: Design manager Natalya Khokhlova has another personal question.

Natalya Khokhlova: When was the last time you played football? Football is a very popular game, so every boy and young man plays it. Whose fan were you as a young man, and whose are you now?

Vladimir Putin: I have said many times that I am a fan of the Russian national team. I cannot change this answer for ethical reasons-I don't want to appear biased.

As for playing football, it wasn't very long ago. I don't remember the precise date. It was an amateur match outside here.

Igor Kots: Were you a forward?

Vladimir Putin: Yes, I was. Attack is the best form of defence-everyone knows that.

Igor Kots: Olga Zigalova, our photo editor, has the last question.

Olga Zigalova: Mr Putin, how do you manage to keep so fit? Would you recommend your own exercise programme to our readers?

Vladimir Putin: My answer might appear trite-I just do sports every day. That's all.

Olga Zigalova: That's what we urge everyone to do. Thank you.

Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Vladimir Sungorkin: Thank you for this talk with the newspaper Soviet Sport. It is making good progress, and here at the editorial office we are glad to see it. We looked forward to seeing you here today, and even cleaned up nicely and pulled down a stall or two.

Vladimir Putin: I gather you tidy up only on rare occasions?

Vladimir Sungorkin: There is just no way to make our staff tidy up. It has been an excellent meeting, Mr Putin. Thank you. We will think about changing the name Soviet Sport to Red Sport.

Thank you. And another request: Will you please have your photo taken with the editorial staff?

Vladimir Putin: Of course.