State oil company Rosneft insisted Thursday it was doing everything possible to stabilize the finances of hockey team CSKA Moscow in an apparent move to repair the damage after president Slava Fetisov walked out complaining of the company's "sickening" influence in team affairs.

Rosneft stepped in to prop up the debt-ridden club in November on a recommendation from Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and despite it partly clearing the backlog of unpaid wages, the fallout from Festiov's acrimonious departure has rocked its reputation.

"Rosneft is providing the club and the team with stable financing to the full extent," a statement issued Thursday said.

Former NHL star Fetisov quit his post as CSKA president after claiming Rosneft was making decisions about the CSKA roster and had unnecessarily delayed Nikita Filatov's loan move from the Ottowa Senators. He also berated CSKA manager Sergei Nemchinov for failing to stand up to the club's new sponsors, calling him "a weak coach, a weak manager, a weak person."

Before Rosneft intervened, CSKA had debts of over $3 million following years of uncertainty during which the club changed hands several times and the ownership structure was opaque.

The team of the Soviet Army, CSKA was dominant in Soviet times, winning 32 regular season championships, including 13 in a row from 1977 to 1989, and the European Cup on 20 occasions.

Since the Soviet collapse, CSKA has failed to win a major championship, although the team has supplied a number of stars like Sergei Krivokrasov and Anton Volchenkov to the NHL.

Rosneft president Eduard Khudainatov had met with CSKA’s head coach Julius Supler to discuss the team’s condition, the statement said.

“The team is demonstrating character, a will to win and is doing everything to do themselves justice and qualify for the play-offs,” the 51-year-old Slovakian Supler was quoted as saying.

“The most important thing now is to disengage from everything else and concentrate on the game.”

Khudainatov said he would meet the team and training staff when they return from their January 28 away match against Dinamo Riga to discuss the club’s future development.