Romanian coach Mircea Lucescu, 74, resigned from the Dynamo Kyiv soccer club just four days after he was chosen to lead the team.
Lucescu, who led Dynamo’s bitter rival Shakhtar Donetsk for 12 years, was rejected by the club’s former players, coaches and fans, many of whom said they would stop supporting Dynamo if Lucescu kept his job.
However, team owner Ihor Surkis stood by the coach, not accepting his resignation. “Dynamo has a coach,” Surkis said after speaking with Lucescu.
Lucescu’s appointment on July 23 isn’t sitting well with Ukrainian soccer fans.
Ukrainian soccer legend Oleh Blokhin, who played for and coached Dynamo Kyiv, said that Lucescu’s appointment is “spitting in the face of Dynamo fans.”
Dynamo Kyiv ultras went even further, promising protests should Lucescu keep his job.
“We appeal to all Dynamo Kyiv employees who have even a shred of self-respect left: All you have to do in the current situation is to write a letter of resignation,” the fan movement said in an official statement.
Under an avalanche of criticism, Lucescu gave up.
“I can’t work in an atmosphere of hostility, especially from the ultras, whose support the team desperately needs,” Lucescu said on July 27, hours after resigning.
After Surkis declined to accept Lucescu’s resignation, the coach’s agent claimed that it had never been meant to be leaked online.
Controversial coach
Lucescu is considered the architect of modern Shakhtar Donetsk, Ukraine’s top club. Appointed head coach in 2004, Lucescu won 8 Ukrainian league titles, eight Ukrainian cups and seven Ukrainian super cups.
In 2009, Lucescu led Shakhtar to European glory, winning the second tier UEFA Cup, the only European club trophy in independent Ukraine.
During his tenure with Shakhtar, Lucescu verbally attacked Dynamo Kyiv. On multiple occasions, he accused the referees of being corrupt and helping Dynamo. He also alleged that Ukraine’s soccer federation was favoring Dynamo Kyiv.
Such accusations were in part due to Ukraine’s soccer federation being led by Hryhoriy Surkis, the brother of Dynamo Kyiv’s owner Ihor Surkis, until 2012.
After ending his tenure at Shakhtar, Lucescu took charge of Russia’s Zenit St. Petersburg club. He was fired a year after the appointment. Lucescu’s decision to work in Russia sparked further controversy among Ukrainian fans.
Serhiy Prytula, a comedian and potential candidate for Kyiv Mayor, said that Lucescu’s work in Russia was the main cause of his dissatisfaction with the coach’s appointment.
“He was forced to leave Donetsk with Shakhtar because of the Russian invasion, and where did he go next? To work in Russia,” Prytula said.
Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, occupying Crimea and eastern parts of the Donbas region. Over 13,000 people have lost their lives as a result. After Russia’s invasion, Shakhtar was forced to play its home games in Kharkiv, a city 300 kilometers northwest of occupied Donetsk.
In 2019, Lucescu was already accused of holding talks with Dynamo, but he denied it. “How is it possible that, after all those years with Shakhtar, I would take on a job with Dynamo?” Lucescu said back in 2019.
