No expenses were spared when Grozny’s new state of the art soccer stadium was inaugurated on May 11. The televised event was celebrated by fireworks, musical performances, and a high profile exhibition game between a team from the region and a team consisting of retired international stars led by Diego Armando Maradona.

The so called Team Kavkaz was mainly made up of former players from the local FC Terek Grozny and politicians like Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, President Medvedev’s personal envoy to the North Caucasus Aleksander Khloponin, Chechen Prime Minister Odes Baysultanov, and Kadyrov’s cousin Adam Delimkhanov, who is also Chechnya’s representative to the Russian State Duma.

Despite the presence of some of the last decades’ most prominent soccer players, there was no confusion about who was the center of attention. Even though Khloponin led Team Kavkaz to the field, he only played for five minutes before being substituted and handing over the captain’s armband to Kadyrov. To a certain extent, the celebrations surrounding the opening of the arena should undoubtedly be understood as a way for Russian and Chechen leaders to showcase the supposed normalization of Chechnya. However, the main purpose appears to have been to manifest and strengthen the personality cults Kadyrov has built around himself and his late father, former President of the Chechen Republic Akhmad-Haji Kadyrov. The crowd chanted Ramzan’s name and were handed flags with his portrait as well as t-shirts with the portrait of the former President. Moreover, like many other buildings in today’s Grozny, the entrance to the stadium was decorated by huge posters of Akhmad Kadyrov and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The new arena is named after former President Akhmad-Haji Kadyrov and can accommodate 30,000 spectators. Nevertheless, the game itself was a less than exciting affair. Kadyrov’s Team Kavkaz managed to secure a 5-2 victory with some help from their opponents and the referee. The Chechen President himself played up front and was allowed to assist a couple of goals.

In the aftermath of the event, Chechen authorities have been accused of coercing people to attend the game. For instance, it was reported that students were told they would not receive their diplomas unless they contributed to filling all the seats in the stadium. This apparently caused disturbances outside the arena, where a huge crowd struggled to enter.

According to Kadyrov’s Press Secretary, the lavish and heavily secured event did not at all burden the republic’s budget, since businessman Bulat Chagaev, a close ally of Kadyrov, and a company called Gesti Soccer purportedly shared the costs. He even claimed that the international players were not paid for participating in the game.

The opening of the new stadium and surrounding events is only the latest in a series of soccer related occurrences that have attracted international media attention to Chechnya. In April, a similar exhibition game was played when a team of former Brazilian World Cup winners visited Grozny and in February, the Dutch manager and former world class player Ruud Gullit signed an 18-month contract with FC Terek Grozny. However, the use of soccer as a political tool is not new to the war torn republic. For many years, football has played a noteworthy role in the efforts of Moscow and the Kadyrov regime to promote their images of Chechnya and its leadership. In 2001, Akhmad Kadyrov resurrected the local club FC Terek Grozny, which had been forced to disband when full-scale war broke out in 1994. Since then, Moscow has invested heavily in the club in order to turn it into an illustration of positive change in post-war Chechnya.

For the Kremlin, the main aim of this campaign has been to convince the non-Chechen part of Russia’s population that Chechnya is becoming a normal Russian republic and that Chechnya’s only significant problem is the persistence of a small group of Wahhabi terrorists. For the Kadyrov clan, its close association with the widely popular soccer club has been a means for strengthening its support among other Chechens. Even though Terek Grozny used to play its home games in Pyatigorsk and despite the fact that it has had very few ethnic Chechen players, it became a source of Chechen national pride in 2004 when it became the first team to win the Russian Cup without playing in the Premier League. The cup final took place only a few weeks after Akhmad Kadyrov was killed in an explosion at Grozny’s old Dinamo Stadium and although the victory has been surrounded by persistent rumors of match-fixing, it made Terek Grozny Russia’s representative in the Uefa Cup. Since 2004, Terek has been able to establish itself in the Russian Premier League and will most likely continue to be an important propaganda tool for both the Kremlin and the Kadyrov regime.