The coach of Ukraine’s national soccer team has quit in protest after the club he also coaches was punished for match fixing.
The coach of Ukraine’s national soccer team has quit in protest after his club was punished for match fixing, a move that highlights the struggle for control over the game between oligarch team owners.
Myron Markevych, who also coaches Metalist Kharkiv, one of the teams penalized, fired a parting shot at Hryhoriy Surkis, the longtime president of the Football Federation of Ukraine, for singling out his club and undermining his work with the national team.
Match fixing is seen as a major problem in Ukrainian soccer, but the departure of Markevych is widely seen as rooted in a long-running battle between wealthy team owners, such as Oleksandr Yaroslavsky at Metalist Kharkiv, Rinat Akhmetov at Shakhtar Donetsk and Ihor Kolomoisky at Dnipro, and the Surkis brothers, who control the FFU and Dynamo Kyiv.
“I have no moral right to work in the organization that intentionally destroys Kharkiv football.”
– Myron Markevych, coach of Ukraine’s national soccer team and also coach of Metalist Kharkiv.
Markevych quit on Aug. 21 after a decision on Aug. 17 by the FFU to penalize Metalist and Karpaty Lviv for a Ukrainian Premier League match in April 2008 that was allegedly fixed in favor of the Kharkiv side. Markevych was not implicated.
Both teams were deducted nine points from the current championship and fined $25,000.
The general director of Metalist football club Yevhen Krasnikov and ex-Karpaty player Serhiy Lashchenkov were banned from working in football for life. Other officials and players from the clubs were also punished.
Three national team players from Metalist – Denys Oliynyk, Marko Devich, Serhiy Valyayev – followed the coach and declared they will not play for the national side.
Markevych slammed his team’s penalty, saying that Metalist had been unfairly singled out.
“I have no moral right to work in the organization that intentionally destroys Kharkiv football,” he said in a statement. In a later interview with BBC’s Ukrainian service, he called the situation “a farce ordered by certain people.”
Surkis – who has been in charge of the FFU since 2000 and co-owner of Dynamo Kyiv since 1993 along with his brother, Ihor – hit back, claiming Markevych was being manipulated.
“I don’t think that he [Myron Markevych], [himself, made this] decision. There is somebody behind Markevych, who is using him.”
– Hryhory Surkis, president of the FFU since 2000 and co-owner of Dynamo Kyiv since 1993.
“I don’t think that he, [himself, made this] decision. There is somebody behind Markevych, who is using him,” he said.
Surkis is likely to have been implying the owner of Metalist Oleksandr Yaroslavsky. Yaroslavsky himself admitted that Markevych consulted with him on this decision. “But I said the he should decide himself. I wasn’t going to make him change his mind,” Yaroslavsky added.
Both teams, which had previously been fifth and sixth in the league, will now have to work hard to qualify for either of the lucrative European championships – the Champions’ League or Europa League.
According to UEFA, Dynamo Kyiv made 12 million euros last year for playing in the Champions’ League, while Shakhtar Donetsk earned almost 2 million euros in the Europa League.
Ukrainian soccer has long been under the sway of powerful oligarchs, who are widely seen as using their teams to boost their popularity.
There have been a number of conflicts in recent years, particularly relating to Surkis’s control over the FFU. The battles between the game’s top backers have negatively affected the national team before.
When the Ukrainian national team played Greece in a World Cup qualifier in Donetsk in November, Akhmetov accused Surkis of trying to make a huge profit from ticket sales by bumping up prices. Ukraine subsequently lost 1-0 in front of a half-empty stadium and did not proceed to the World Cup in South Africa.
Shakhtar coach Mircea Lucescu was in November offered the job coaching the national team before previous coach Oleksiy Mykhailychenko had left the position. Lucescu then turned down the job, and Ukraine was left without a coach until Markevych was appointed in February.
Akhmetov-backed Shakhtar recently supported the idea of weakening the FFU’s power by uniting the Ukrainian and Russian leagues.
The club’s CEO, Serhiy Palkin, earlier in August suggested combining the countries’ cup tournaments as a first step toward full unification.
“We’ve seen African football held back for decades by the machinations of government and businessmen. It would be a tragedy if a nation with the history of Ukraine went the same way.”
– Jonathan Wilson, a British writer and expert on Eastern European football.
In his parting statement, Markevych accused the FFU of “ignoring the interests of the national team, particularly in creating the game schedule, players’ selection, financing and providing proper infrastructure.”
Jonathan Wilson, a British writer and expert on Eastern European football, said football associations have to be allowed to get on with their jobs without interference.
“We’ve seen African football held back for decades by the machinations of government and businessmen. It would be a tragedy if a nation with the history of Ukraine went the same way,” he added.
It’s unclear who will succeed Markevych. Deputy coach Yuriy Kalytvyntsev will take over as caretaker for the friendly matches against Poland and Chile at the start of September.
A report in U.K. newspaper the Daily Mail suggested former England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, who coached Ivory Coast at the World Cup finals this summer, is interested in the job.
Markevych told BBC Ukrainian he held “no hope” for the national team under the current administration, adding that a foreign coach wouldn’t be able to cope. “I think that any coach will go insane, even the most successful,” he said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olga Gnativ can be reached at [email protected].
