INTRODUCTION
“Just like football, business is a game of inches, where the smallest advancement or advantage can mean the difference between winning and losing.” – Lewis Howes. Horizontal integration methods are applicable in a huge variety of sports around the world. Some football clubs create special bilateral agreements conditioned by a privileged choice when transferring players between them, but this cannot be called a real example of expansion or joint-venture. There is such a phenomenon called “farm-team”, which means a reserve team for the main club. This is most widespread in hockey rather than in football, however, in football there are as well second or even third teams of the main club, which mainly provide practice to young or less famous athletes. Farm-teams most often have the same name as the main team, for example, “Krasnodar” football club has its own farm-team called “Krasnodar 2”. Usually, they play in the lower divisions of the hierarchy of championships within Russia, but even these examples cannot be called the expansion of Russian clubs, as this is just another link in the big football system. An example of the expansion of its own network of clubs around the world can be considered the Red Bull company, which can already be rightfully called a football empire. Now the Red Bull network includes five teams – "Salzburg", "Leipzig", "New York Red Bull", Brazilian "Bragantino" and Austrian "Lifering".  The goal of this work is aimed at developing a strategic business plan to create an affiliated football club for one of the clubs of the Russian Premier League outside Russian Federation’s borders through the geographical expansion. Unfortunately, due to the current geopolitical situation, Russian clubs are no longer allowed to participate in international competitions starting from the first quarter of 2022. The creation of an affiliated club for one of the leading clubs in Russia could be both a solution to this problem and an opportunity to expand financial and gaming capabilities. To do this, the following objectives are going to be fulfilled: Describe the organization and explain the managerial problem. Explain the paper’s structure and methodology in detail. Analyze the environment of football industry in Russia. Analyze the performance of farm-teams and their place in the hierarchy of football leagues in Russian Federation. Identify the club for the expansion into a foreign market. Identify a host country. Conduct environmental analysis of the chosen country. Develop a strategic plan for internationalization. Identify the philosophy and develop the strategy of the club's development. The 9 main objectives of this paper are mentioned above and they also show the structure of the project, as they are arranged in a certain order from the beginning to the end. The paper will be divided into three chapters, the first of which is "Russian football industry characteristics", the second - "The choice of potential club & country for internationalization" and the last chapter is called - "Internationalization Plan". The first objective is addressed at an overview of the Russian Premier League as an organization and at explaining the managerial problem which RPL has to solve for today. The second objective includes the detailed explaining of the methodology that was implemented. The third is necessary to identify the main factors influencing RPL and current trends and to draw an overall picture of the organization and the stage of development at which the RPL is at the moment. Next, the analyses the performance of farm-teams in the hierarchy of football leagues in Russian Federation should be conducted in order to identify their role in Russian football today and draw several conclusions as well. The fifth objective is dedicated to choose of the club for the expansion into a foreign market and, to make the choice, the list of criteria to determine which team geographical expansion would be best for will be developed. The next objective is to identify the host country based on the list of criteria developed further. These criteria are going to be based on overall economic situation in the country as well as the level of football development and capabilities will be identified and analyzed. One more step is to conduct deep environmental analysis of chosen country in order to understand the main opportunities and threats which could influence on football now and in future. The 8th objective is to develop a strategic plan for the internationalization, including the choice of entry mode, possible opportunities and risks and so on. Finally, to understand the big picture the philosophy of the club will be chosen and the strategy of its further development, that is, the definition and analysis of the goals that the club must fulfill. After all, as soon as job has been accomplished the final conclusion will be drawn.  
The main idea of this paper is to develop a business plan for the Russian Premier League (RPL) to create an anachronous club for one of the leading clubes in Russia. The club's geographical expansion would be an opportunity to expand their financial and gaming capabilities, as well as to create an example of the Red Bull company, which has already an empire of fifty clubes around the world.