Baseball's exclusion from the Olympic programme after Beijing could make the game extinct in Russia just as it was starting to flourish.
'I really fear that baseball will soon die as a sport in this country,' Russian baseball federation vice-president Dmitry Kiselev told Reuters in an interview.
'In Russia, most of the money is spent on sports that are part of the Olympic programme, others get very little, and since we didn't qualify for Beijing in baseball or softball the funding will be cut drastically,' he said.
'Unlike some other sports that can attract wealthy private sponsors, baseball doesn't have enough interest among the public to survive on its own without financial aid from the state.'
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) voted in 2005 to remove baseball and softball from the Games programme after this year.
