New Officiating Committee, Rating for Kids’ Coaches, Payments to Clubs

On Sep. 11, 2025, the KHL’s outgoing Board of Directors met in Moscow. There was also a general meeting of the KHL’s management to elect a new Board of Directors.

Record Payments to Clubs

The total payment for the 2024/2025 season came to составила 2,157,098,260 rubles ($25.4 million) after tax. The payment formula is based on income from selling broadcast and betting rights, as well as targeted financing.

In 2024/2025 the league sold broadcast and betting rights. International channels broadcast 745 games, regional channels had 707 broadcasts, Russian federal sports channel Match! showed 106 games and there were 1,634 broadcasts on the KHL’s in-house TV channels.

Starting from 2023/2024, funds were distributed in the following manner:

30 % of the overall sum was shared among clubs according to their sporting achievements,
70 % was shared according to the clubs’ ratings in nine categories: sporting achievements (20 %); value of result compared with budget (20 %); financial (10 %); paying players on time (5 %); attendances (10 %); spectator services (5 %); TV Index (10 %); income from licensing and ticketing programs, and food concessions (10 %); media partnerships (10 %).

Lokomotiv earned the biggest payment for the 2024/2025 season – 188,781,929 rubles ($2.2 million) after tax.

Clubs are advised to use the funds they receive from the KHL to improve facilities for players, perhaps by purchasing or upgrading equipment for service areas or creating recovery zones. Another suitable expenditure might be modernizing arena infrastructure, improving the spectator experience, organizing fun days in the region and many more.

The KHL began sharing revenues between competing teams in 2014/2015. This year’s payment is the 11th in a row.

New Members for Officiating Committee

Since the 2023/2024 season, the KHL has operated an Officiating Expertise Committee, chaired by Rene Fasel. Last season, it received 92 queries in respect of 218 incidents, of which 24% were upheld. During the 2024/2025 campaign, five clubs did not contact the committee: Torpedo, Ak Bars, Amur and Gagarin Cup finalists Lokomotiv and Traktor.

The Board of Directors confirmed the new membership of the Officiating Expertise Committee for the 2025/2026 season. The new team includes Denis Grebeshkov, Evgeny Artyukhin, Sergei Bashkirov and Vasily Rytvinsky.

Encouragement for Youth Coaching

The league is continuing to implement its program to boost children’s coaches and youth sports schools to develop hockey players that reach the KHL. In the previous rating, Sergei Suyarkov and the CSKA school led the way. After the 2024/2025 season, the leading coach was Gennady Kudrin, and the top was Traktor. Bonus payments to coaches are determined by the place in the ranking: 100,000 rubles for places 51-100, 300,000 from 2-50 and 1 million rubles for first place.

The KHL Strategy

The meeting considered the latest information on the implementation of the KHL Strategy for 2023-2026.

One of the most significant achievements was the consistent reduction in the financial imbalance between clubs. In the 2024/2025 season there was a record low gap between the clubs with the highest and lowest wage bills (not including team bonuses). Last season, the richest outspent the poorest 2.4 times. For comparison, in 2023/2024 the difference was threefold and before the introduction of the salary cap it was sevenfold.

Another KHL strategic goal is to increase each club’s commercial income. Over the past five seasons, the average share of commercial revenue in clubs’ budgets has increased to 18.5%, and several clubs have reached 25%, which was the league’s target figure. The league’s analysis of the market and the work of its clubs suggests that almost all competitors have scope for further commercial growth.

Interaction with players is another important part of the development strategy. In 2024/2025 the league held two working groups on interaction with players and many of those proposals were successfully incorporated into KHL regulations. At the same time, strict monitoring of how clubs complied with their regulations ensured that players continued to enjoy attractive conditions. Last season, 21 clubs fulfilled at least 80% of the requirements.

In 2024/2025 the league established a commission to accredit hockey agents. Its work involved 15 face-to-face meetings, exams and interviews. Thanks to this work, 21 agents received KHL accreditation ahead of the 2025/2026 campaign.