Varese (2001:57): “The collapse of the Soviet Union also led to the collapse of the network of sports clubs supported by the regime. Some sportsmen—such as wrestlers, weightlifters, bodybuilders, and boxers—were in a position to sell their services on the market for protection?”
Volkov (2002:8): “Close connections — both historical and institutional — between sports and military violence make the boundary between them particularly unstable when the conditions that once created that boundary undergo a radical change.”
Volkov (2002:10): “The shared experience of being one sport team, which involves regular training and competition as well as shared victories and defeats, is likely to create strong trust and group coherence. Combined with professional fighting skills, this provides a potential social basis for the conversion of team mates into members of a racketeering gang.”
Volkov (2002:15): “Former sportsmen were the pioneers of this movement - gyms and sports clubs were the initial breeding grounds for the fresh wave of organized crime. Sports, though the core of the new criminal phenomenon, were certainly not its only source. Former participants in local wars, ex-convicts, former employees of state security and police organizations, and even members of the revived Cossack movement also filled the ranks of racketeering groups. What made all those disparate groups similar was their capacity to use and manage physical force and to organize this key resource for a particular kind of entrepreneurial activity.”
Volkov (2002:100): “Several subcultures in Russia produced individual dispositions and skills that are also required for violent entrepreneurship. Sports clubs, especially those in fighting sports and the martial arts made an especially significant contribution.“