What do you give the perfect ruler after building the perfect town and then naming it in his honor? A perfect soccer team to play its matches there!
Arkadag, the “smart city” built in the image of Turkmenistan’s “Leader of the Nation,” Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov -- the all-powerful father of President Serdar Berdymukhammedov -- is just 6 months old.
And yet the new team that plays its matches there, FC Arkadag, has already managed to run away with the Turkmen league title, registering 22 wins in 22 games with just two games left to play.
Only a fool would bet against them topping off their season by winning the country's other major football trophy: the Turkmenistan Cup.
Indeed, FC Arkadag already has a foot in the final of that competition, having thrashed the team that occupies second place in the league, Altyn Asyr, 4-1 in the first leg of the cup semifinal.
But Arkadag is not the first Central Asian soccer team to achieve overnight success thanks to backing from strongmen or their family members.
But as befits the region’s most authoritarian country, FC Arkadag’s success is the kind that puts the success of other “regime teams” in the shade.
Put simply, the club is already getting a reputation for being suspiciously successful.
The Cost Of Perfection
Spare a thought for Altyn Asyr (Golden Century), because this club was once very much Turkmenistan’s superclub, winning eight of the last nine previous league titles and three Turkmenistan Cups in the same period.
Founded in 2008 at the beginning of Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov’s reign, Altny Asyr shares a name with Turkmenistan’s flagship state broadcaster, which pumps out propaganda depicting the decrepit country as a happy and prosperous state.
But the person Turkmen are endlessly told they have to thank for this “Golden Century” -- an era that for many citizens has been synonymous with deepening poverty and shortages of bread and other basic goods -- is the senior Berdymukhammedov himself, known to his people as Arkadag, or “protector.”
Indeed, it is Berdymukhammedov Sr. -- not his son, the country’s president -- whose exploits get top billing on state news.
If anything, the elder Berdymukhammedov’s legend has only grown since he made the decision to hand the presidency to his son, taking on new roles that appear to place him above Serdar.
The creation of Arkadag city, a settlement of approximately 60,000 residents, is arguably the peak of the Berdymukhammedov cult and features a statue of the patriarch more than 40 meters tall and a central street named after his favorite horse, Akhan.
Unlike so many of Turkmenistan’s cities, Arkadag is well equipped with modern schools, nurseries, and state-of-the-art hospitals, as well as cutting edge surveillance and monitoring systems.
And, of course, there is a shiny new 10,000-seat stadium for FC Arkadag, whose uniform design was overseen by none other than Berdymukhammedov himself.
But all this raises a troubling question.
If Arkadag the man is so great, how can the soccer team carrying his name risk defeat?
For the moment, restricted to a diet of domestic football, the odds of that seem very low.
FC Arkadag was able to raid other clubs like Altyn Asyr and Ahal for their best players, making the club’s roster rather similar to Turkmenistan’s national team in composition.
And, according to an anonymous football fan interviewed by the Vienna-based Chronicles of Turkmenistan website, “referees are clearly helping” the newcomers.
This was particularly apparent when one referee gave a dubious last-minute penalty in FC Arkadag’s favor in a game against a team called Shagadam, enabling the club to maintain its 100 percent record with a 1-0 win, the fan told Chronicles of Turkmenistan
“According to the fan, FC Arkadag is killing the intrigue in games and fans’ interest in the sport,” the website wrote on December 4.
Regime Projects
Sport, and soccer in particular, has proven a popular instrument for political branding among Central Asian governments -- even if regular football fans don’t always take kindly to the gate-crashing, regime-backed teams.
In Kazakhstan, a soccer club in the capital, Astana, got more than a shot in the arm when it was incorporated in 2013 into the Astana Presidential Sports Club, a multisport club created by then-President Nursultan Nazarbaev and backed by the sovereign wealth fund, Samruk Kazyna.
Before that move, FC Astana, previously Lokomotiv Astana, had never won a league title, although another club from the capital that promptly faded from sight had been crowned champion three times.
After the incorporation, FC Astana claimed six titles in a row, overshadowing FC Kairat, a side with Soviet roots based in the largest city, Almaty.
In Tajikistan, Dushanbe-based FC Istiqlol has won the league title every year except for two since 2010, with Rustam Emomali, the politically powerful son of President Emomali Rahmon, founding the club and serving as its captain and “star” striker during its first years.
Like FC Arkadag, the club has sometimes been perceived by fans of other clubs as enjoying the rub of the green in terms of officiating.
In one game against their fierce rivals Ravshan Kulob in 2011, Kulob fans rioted after Istiqlol registered a late winning goal as the referee overlooked an apparent offside that should have nullified the score.
Perhaps the noisiest entrant to the regional soccer scene was FC Bunyodkor of Uzbekistan.
In 2008, the Tashkent side shocked the soccer world by signing Brazilian World Cup winner Rivaldo.
From that point on, Bunyodkor won five national titles in the space of six years.
But Rivaldo was on board for only two seasons, with the relationship ending in acrimony after the Brazilian claimed the club had shortchanged him to the tune of several million dollars.
The Bunyodkor project had been bankrolled by a controversial Uzbek company called Zeromax and was tightly associated with Gulnara Karimova, then-President Islam Karimov’s eldest daughter.
The club’s star later waned like that of Karimova, who was placed under house arrest while her father was still president and then convicted and jailed on criminal conspiracy charges after he died.
Bunyodkor currently sit in eighth place out of 14 teams in the Uzbek league.
No Good Away From Home?
Given that FC Arkadag is a completely new team, the club has not had many opportunities to test themselves against opponents outside the country, and in environments where they can expect more stringent refereeing.
One exception was a friendly the club played in Bulgaria against a second division team from Moldova called Besa Doberdoll in July that ended in a draw.
But sterner tests await the Turkmen superclub next season when, by virtue of their success in their home country, FC Arkadag will compete in Asian club tournaments.
And that could even mean a tantalizing encounter with Cristiano Ronaldo and Saudi side Al-Nassr in the Asian version of the Champions League.
Istiqlol, as it happens, found itself in a qualifying group with Al-Nassr in this season’s edition of that tournament. The Tajik team finished last in the four-team group.
For the moment, despite state propaganda and its main figurehead regularly stressing the benefits of physical activity -- Berdymukhammedov Sr. is often shown triumphing over his sycophantic underlings in a range of sports -- Turkmenistan’s reputation in international competitions is the poorest of Central Asia’s five countries.
Indeed, it was not until 2021 that Turkmenistan won its first ever Olympic medal with weightlifter Polina Guryeva claiming a silver in Tokyo.
