An investment company owned by Ukrainian businessman Gennadiy Butkevych, who also co-owns the ATB supermarket chain, has purchased Zhytomyr’s Polissya Football Club for an undisclosed sum.
The investment firm, BGV Group Management, has been involved with the team in the past, according to Zhytomyr City Council head Serhiy Sukhomlyn, who announced the acquisition in a Facebook post.
“BGV Group has been helping the club for over a year, buying a bus and a car,” he wrote. “Now, they will become the owners and develop the team further.”
Polissya currently play in the First League, the second of three tiers in Ukraine’s professional football pyramid. However, the new owners have set their sights higher.
“We now need to ensure that FC Polissya play in the highest football division in the country (the Premier League),” BGV board member Sergii Voitsekhovskyi wrote on his Facebook page.
Polissya was previously owned by the Zhytomyr City Council, which made the decision to resurrect the club in 2016 after the original Polissya went bankrupt in 2005.
BGV is an investment company that focuses on rare mineral mining and owns the Kolo supermarket chain. It owns the Perzhansk beryllium mine in Zhytomyr Oblast.
Butkeych’s ATB is the largest supermarket chain in the country — it posted a turnover of $5.6 billion in 2020. Novoye Vremya magazine estimates Butkevych’s personal net worth to be $277 million.
Due to relatively small, low-income supporter bases and insignificant TV royalties, football clubs in Ukraine have for decades relied on financial backers to cover their losses.
When Polissya was municipally owned, its financing was supposed to be split 50/50 between the City Council and the Regional Administration.
According to the local media outlet I, Zhytomyryanin, this led to regular quarrels between the two bodies and the club received only $90,000 in 2020, about half the promised amount.
