President's sport club opened in Astana

Kazakhstan President’s professional sport club Astana was presented in Astana, Vesti.kz reports. This club is called to join some of the country’s image-making projects. “Today we have gathered the managers of the country’s top clubs. This the origin of a global project that is called to unit the country’s image-making projects,” chairman of Samruk-Kazyna National Welfare Fund Umirzak Shukeyev said adding that the project should eventually grow to be in one line with global brands like Real and Barcelona. Shukeyev added that the decision was made to optimize spending, but funding of sports was not going to be cut. “Samruk-Kazyna plans to continuously fund the image-making projects: around 20 sport federations. Besides popular sports Astana will also include Kazakh national ones, like Kazakh Baryssy project. Training of Ilya Ilyin for the Olympic Games in Brazil will become a separate cost item,” Shukeyev said. Professional sports club Astana is a union that will include all leading image-making sports projects of Kazakhstan, including cycling, basketball, football, hockey, boxing, car racing, polo and water-polo. They will all operate under single Astana brand aimed for promotion of Kazakhstan’s image at the global arena. The project includes the following clubs: Astana football club, Astana basketball club, Barys hockey club, professional boxing team Astana Arlans and other key teams of the country. Olympic champion of the Athens-2004 Bakhtiyar Artayev is the club's president. Aidar Makhmetov was appointed the club’s General Manager.