Дмитрий Басков. Фото: hockey.by/news
Council of the Republic member and head coach of Aliaksandr Lukashenka‘s hockey team Dzmitry Baskau has become chairman of the supervisory board of the Dinamo Minsk hockey club. The new composition of the board was determined ahead of the start of the season, the Belarusian Ice Hockey Federation reported.
The supervisory board also includes Deputy Interior Minister Hennadz Kazakevich, former longtime commander of the Minsk OMON riot police and chairman of the central council of the Dinamo Belarusian Physical Culture and Sports Society Dzmitry Balaba, head of the Sports Ministry’s national teams department Mikhail Prakapenka, and Belarusian Ice Hockey Federation Secretary General Andrei Bashko.
The supervisory board determines the club’s main areas of work and oversees its activities. Its powers include setting the budget, financial and transfer policies, approving the appointment of the coaching staff, determining the principles for forming the team’s roster and players’ payroll, as well as overseeing the work of the general director.
In his Telegram channel, Baskau announced the end of the five-year suspension imposed on him by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) in 2021. He said he can now “officially return to hockey activities” and intends to work for the development of Belarusian hockey.
“Today, September 10, the formal date has finally arrived when I can officially return to hockey activities in every sense of the word. Today marks the expiration of the suspension unjustifiably imposed on me by the International Ice Hockey Federation on September 9, 2021, because, as a person raised by sport and by our President to love the Motherland, I sought to instill the same values in our hockey players.
For doing what, in my understanding, any sports official of any sports federation anywhere in the world should do! Any patriot of their country, rather than a sellout politician! Today I am turning this page, which is shameful for the International Ice Hockey Federation, so that I can work with three times the energy for the benefit of Belarusian hockey!” he wrote.
Baskau headed the Belarusian Ice Hockey Federation until September 2021. He stepped down as a result of the IIHF’s decision to suspend him for five years. Baskau is suspected of involvement in the killing of protester Raman Bandarenka in November 2020. The case was never investigated and those responsible were never punished, despite Lukashenka’s personal assurances.