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Tashkent’s hokim Shavkat Umurzakov signed a decision on 29 October directing five billion soums from the Tashkent Development Fund to football club Pakhtakor, earmarking the money to cover the club’s operating expenses in line with an approved budget estimate.
The order routes the funds through the joint-stock company Toshkent Invest. Umurzakov’s first deputy for finance, economics and poverty reduction, Dilshod Khudoybergenov, has been instructed to bring a corresponding proposal before Toshkent Invest’s supervisory board, which must then authorise the disbursement. The initiative was jointly requested by the Centre for Municipal Asset Management under the Tashkent city administration and by Pakhtakor itself.
The Centre for Municipal Asset Management is also required to use the allocation to increase its own share in the club’s authorised capital — meaning the transfer is structured as an equity injection rather than a grant — and to ensure the funds are spent for their stated purpose. The club will be obliged to report on expenditure to the Tashkent City Council of People’s Deputies.
A Club Under Financial Pressure
The decision comes against a backdrop of widely reported financial difficulties at Pakhtakor. Vaqt.uz, citing data from the iHamkor.uz portal, reported in May 2026 that the club recorded a loss of 50.8 billion soums for the 2025 financial year. Total expenditure reached 128.9 billion soums, and the club’s tax debt stood at 17.1 billion soums — a sharp reversal from 2024, when Pakhtakor closed the year with a net profit of 36.9 billion soums.
Sports media outlets reported over the summer that salary payments to players and staff had been delayed since May, though the club’s management did not publicly address those reports. Separate coverage in August suggested that businessman Jahongir Artykhodjaev had stopped providing financial support to the club; those claims were never officially confirmed, though it was subsequently reported that accumulated debts had by then been settled.
The five-billion-soum allocation — roughly equivalent to a fraction of the club’s reported 2025 losses — is framed as a targeted operational subsidy channelled through a city-owned investment vehicle, with a formal accountability trail back to the city council.