Rafik Yakubov has been named the SKA sporting director
Rafik Yakubov has been named the SKA sporting director
Rafik Yakubov has been named the sporting director of SKA Hockey Club. The specialist previously worked as the general manager of Ak Bars Kazan. With Yakubov, Ak Bars won the Russian championship and the KHL Gagarin Cup in 2018.
Factfile:
Rafik Yakubov was born on 14 September 1966. He progressed through the Kazan ice hockey system, notably playing for Ak Bars, Sputnik Almetevsk, SKA Sverdlovsk, Lada Tolyatti and Neftekhimik Nizhnekamsk.
He won the Russian championship twice and two silver medals of the domestic league.
Between 2002 and 2015, Rafik worked with Neftekhimik as the senior coach, club director, general manager and head coach. He became the general manager of Ak Bars in 2017.
- Welcome to SKA! What will you be responsible for?
- First of all, I would like to thank the club's management for inviting me to join SKA. SKA always have the highest targets. With us all working together, we need to make sure that the players develop and grow. We will continue to keep the balance between achieving positive results and helping young talents develop for the national team.
- How familiar are you with the SKA structure?
- The SKA system has long been working efficiently. The club undertakes all efforts to ensure that the required facilities are in place for both young and experienced players, it's no coincidence that all Russian national teams have a lot of players from Saint Petersburg. We want players from the MHL and VHL to be able to compete for the senior team. The SKA system is one of the most productive in the KHL, our goal is to make it even more effective. It's no secret that the infrastructure in Saint Petersburg can be compared to the best facilities located overseas, young players in the SKA system get to work with fantastic facilities and the leading coaches. This is what they need as they begin to progress from junior to senior ice hockey.
- However, some players do still like to move to North America when 16 or 17 years of age.
- In my opinion, they are making that decision too early, it often proves to be a mistake. Yes, we can understand why experienced players who have won everything in Russia want to go there, but the young guys have to work their way through a number of junior leagues before reaching the NHL. We've lost hundreds of talented players due to their mistaken decision to move to North America so early. Keeping young players in Russia is one of our priorities, there are already a lot of examples of players who have changed their minds and decided to remain here instead and subsequently began competing at senior level when between 17 and 19 years of age. This is good for us and the national team.
