Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s strong oligarch, will award the country’s national football squad $10 million if they reach the last 16 of Euro 2024, his ruling party announced Thursday.
Georgia’s 2-0 victory over Portugal on Wednesday marked a historic victory in the Black Sea country’s debut at a major international competition.
Coached by Frenchman Willy Sagnol, the squad advanced from Group F as one of the four best third-place finishers and will face Spain, which won all of their group games, on Sunday.
The ruling Georgian Dream Party’s “honorary chairman Bidzina Ivanishvili will award Georgia’s football team 30 million lari ($10.7 million) for qualifying for the last 16 of Euro 2024,” the party said in a statement.
“An additional 30 million lari will be awarded in case of a win over Spain,” it added.
Ivanishvili, the country’s richest man who made his wealth in Russia in the 1990s, is commonly seen as a puppet master manipulating power from behind the scenes, despite the fact that he holds no formal government role.
Last year, he was named Georgian Dream’s “honorary chairman,” a new position that gives him the formal authority to choose the ruling party’s prime minister contender.
His return to frontline politics in 2023 has generated concerns that he is moving Tbilisi away from its national aspiration of joining the EU.
