Oleg Lapshin

Oleg Borisovich Lapshin was born in Moscow on 18 October 1937. He was introduced to football by his uncle, Yuri Dmitrievich Zavalenov, who worked at the central council of the Trudovye Rezervy sports society.

He trained at the society's football school in Leningrad, where his coaches included German Zonin, later a well known Soviet manager. An injury ended his playing career early. He graduated with honours from a physical education technical college and then studied at the State Central Institute of Physical Culture in Moscow from 1958 to 1962.

Lapshin began coaching with Avangard in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, where he spent two years, and then worked with Trudovye Rezervy and Krylia Sovetov in Moscow. He coached Moscow city youth teams of various age groups.

From 1968 he coached at FShM, the Moscow Football School of Youth. Among his pupils were Viktor Kruglov and Sergei Petrenko, who won the 1976 European under-23 championship with the Soviet Union, and that year he was named an Honoured Coach of the RSFSR.

In the early 1980s he worked for about two and a half years in Togo as head coach of ASKO Kara, winning promotion to the top division and twice finishing third. He returned to FShM from 1983 to 1986.

From 1988 to 1991 he was head coach of the Soviet Union women's national team, and from 1992 to 1994 of the Russia women's national team, guiding the sport through its first years at international level.

Lapshin was president of the Russian Women's Football Association from 1992 to 2002. He served on the executive committee of the Russian Football Union from 1992 to 1998, on its appeals council in 1997 and 1998 and on its technical council. Internationally he was a member of FIFA's committee for women's football from 1994 to 1998 and of a UEFA committee from 1999 to 2002.

From 1999 to 2007 he was director of FShM-Torpedo, and from 2014 he worked again at FShM as senior coach of its youngest age groups, continuing to train children into his late seventies and beyond.

Oleg Lapshin died on 10 November 2026, aged 89. His death was announced the same day by the Russian Football Union and the Moscow Football Federation. No cause of death was made public.

The Russian Football Union said he had coached since 1962 and offered its condolences to his family. Vyacheslav Koloskov, the union's honorary president, told reporters that Lapshin had been at the origins of women's football and called him a clever, tactful, very open and cheerful man who was always smiling and highly competent. The Moscow Football Federation said details of the farewell would be announced later.

Lapshin is regarded as one of the founders of organised women's football in the Soviet Union and Russia, as the first long-serving coach of the national team and then as the head of the women's football association for a decade.

At FShM he helped develop generations of Moscow footballers, including European youth champions, and his career as a coach spanned more than six decades. His honours included Honoured Coach of the RSFSR (1976), Honoured Worker of Physical Culture of the Russian Federation (1997), the Medal in Commemoration of the 850th Anniversary of Moscow (1998) and Honoured Coach of Russia (2000).